In Leaps and Bounds
by Still Forgotten
Summary: They had all watched Naruto being buried, but even 4 years later, while Sakura has come to accept this mysterious new man with hurtfully familiar eyes, Sasuke can't help but hate him. Until he learns...SasuNaru
1. Of foxes and woman with muscles

'**.o.'  
****-+.:In Leaps and Bounds:.+-  
**'**.o.'**

**A/N- I understand that Sakura makes a lot of important appearances in here. Bear with me. This will not deviate from the original smutty SasuNaru path. Enjoy!**

**º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø,¸¸ º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø  
**_Listen as the wind blows from across the great divide  
__Voices trapped in yearning, memories trapped in time  
__The night is my companion and solitude my guide  
__Would I spend forever here and not be satisfied?  
_**º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø,¸¸ º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø**

**-Chapter one-**

The grass was waving lethargically in the wind, just as it had been doing…_that_ day.

"_Sasuke, Naruto, come look over here!"_

Naruto spun around on the spot, searching desperately for the person that fitted with that beautifully familiar voice, eyes roving over the hill of clovers he stood on for that pink haired kunoichi.

He laughed sadly. Even though he could see for miles on that green expanse, there was no one. But then, he had never expected there to be.

He hadn't heard that voice in over four years.

The eighteen year old continued his slow trek along the crest of the hill, hands shoved in pockets, remembering the last time he had been here, although then, he had been accompanied by an oblivious team seven. Well, Sasuke hadn't been too happy that day, but it was nothing compared to the preceding events. The pain _he_ would ultimately cause.

Naruto smiled softly into the wind, (his memories of this place so fond and innocent) and then jerked in surprise as a distinct voice called out behind him.

"_Dobe, don't eat that."_

"_Why the hell not?"_

A small smile crept back to his lips as he watched two figures bickering a distance away. They were as he remembered them from that time, young and full of high strung exuberant energy. The figures were slightly more blurry in his vision, but then again, so were all his memories of _those_ times. Sasuke stood, just as he had that day, hands shoved in pockets as he looked down at the blonde boy, sitting in the lofty waving grass. His mind had even conjured up the faint hint of lavender that had been riding the wind that day, completing in every respect the scene he forever remembered.

"_Because it's poisonous."_

"_It's a mushroom!"_

"…_and it's poisonous…"_

"_What the hell do you know, you dumb bastard?"_

"_Suit yourself."_

The physical Naruto wrinkled his nose, facing the couple. He had no desire any longer to finish this memory. He had replayed it in his mind's eye for years now, and it was imprinted so acutely in his head that no level of mental injury could ever remove it.

"You're just a memory," he called out, only a hint of distant pain making his voice strain through the distance. "Just a memory." The two children looked up at him, one still kneeling on the ground, fingers wrapped around the stem of a vibrant plant. The ocean blue eyes seemed so innocent as they gazed calmly back, and even Sasuke's maintained a touch of carefree youth. "Just a memory I never wanted to have," he whispered.

Naruto turned his back on the two, and he felt them fade sadly away behind him. Why did he always end up feeling guilty…every time they vanished?

Naruto shut his eyes in pain.

"You know what you've made me, Kyuubi?" he asked acridly to the air, voice slightly strained in sour humor, knowing full well that the demon could hear him. He continued to climb along the hill, retracing the steps he had taken as a child here, as the demon stirred inside him.

The wind blew heavy gusts of fresh mountain air past the boy's face, which he had left uncovered that day, tangling with slightly wild blonde spikes.

"**Yes, Kit. I've made you- us-…alone."**

There was no regret in that voice, but neither was there malice. Just a statement of the variety Naruto had come to accept from the demon that was his burden.

"Why?" he questioned, knowing the answer, but wanting, _needing_ a reason to just talk. He hadn't spoken aloud in what must have been weeks, months. He didn't need the words, but they were all that kept him sane…all that kept him human. He had known the answer, even before the demon voiced it.

"**Power."**

And that was that.

They had a mutual respect for each other, neither hated the other, but neither would they hesitate to kill each other, because, that was just how things worked. Kyuubi wanted freedom, and Naruto….Naruto wanted the monster inside of him gone.

"**Things wouldn't change, even if I did die, Kit," **the fox growled, having already picked up on the teen's thoughts before the boy could organize them into a full sentence. Naruto plucked a tall stalk of dried grass, idly fingering it as he walked.

"No. No, I suppose it wouldn't. Not anymore."

.o.  
Four Years Ago  
.o.

Enraged crimson slits hovered briefly in hues of violet before they shifted uneasily back to tortured blue. Naruto blinked, then a rush of air sucked into his lungs as he fully took in the devastation around him. The destruction _he_ had caused.

Red streams ran from the walls to the floor, looking almost black in the flickering light, locking the boy in a semi-surreal world. Broken items were strewn everywhere; tables, glass, …_Bodies…_

_don'tlookatthebodies…_

The blood was already drying under his fingernails. In his hair.

"S-sensei…I-"

Naruto stepped tentatively forward, reaching a hand towards the fallen man, the jounin's arm still stretched out protectively to the side as if to shield his raven haired student from his friend. As far as a broken arm could stretch, anyway.

"Back…_off," _the man growled, his breaths coming fast and heavy, blood making the green jounin outfit stick viscously to his worn skin, and Naruto wondered just how hard he had really hit the man.

Not him. _Kyuubi._

But the two were one and the same

"Sensei, plea- I didn't… _please…_" The blonde struggled for a moment, trying desperately to make his sensei _understand_ why he had done what he'd done, and at the same time, trying to remember why he _had_ done it. But the man would have none of it.

"Wake the _fuck _up, Naruto!"

The boy stood for a second, not instantly registering what the man had said…and then-

"It's _me,_ sensei," he whispered brokenly. "It's me." _Not the fox._

"Dammit!" The man lunged suddenly, fingers wrapping tightly around the uneven laces of Naruto's orange jacket. "_Dammit_! _Fucking. Wake._ Up!" Kakashi punctuated each word with a hit to the dazed blonde, till blood ran down both sides of his scarred cheeks, mingling with the tears he had never meant to shed in front of his teacher. In front of Sasuke.

_Gods, what did Sasuke think of him? Had he- yes, of course he had seen. He had seen it all._

Naruto was fourteen, and it seemed that even those he had come to trust, come to believe they didn't hate him for Kyuubi, even _they_ had turned on him someday.

His eyes lost their shine as he faded into his thoughts, willing away both the physical and mental pain that came with the blows to his face.

Stand still, it can't last forever. Look, but don't see. See, but don't feel. Hate- 

"Kakashi, _stop!_"

Silence fell through the room as the routinely tacit Uchiha ignored formalities, trying to pull his teacher from his desperate anger.

"It wasn't him," he growled, quieter this time. "So let him go."

The older man's hands trembled slightly as his fingers unfurled their clutch on the child's clothing, but not before turning the crushed boy around so he could see the carnage in the small room. The carnage _he_ had caused… and those familiar faces that stared sickly pale up at him with lifeless wide eyes. He recognized a handful of the jounin from the village, and a chuunin who had once taught the blonde's academy class…before he'd been transferred.

He had killed them.

The people he'd sworn to protect.

A wave of nausea sent the boy to his knees again as he vomited up the remains of the little food he'd last eaten, staring unreserved at the pooling blood before him. He had done… this…?

"You see?" he had never heard that tone in his mentor's voice. That pain, and the fury he tried to hide it behind. He had lost his friends today, to the child he had tried to teach. "Get the hell out of here, Naruto," the man said quiet and deadly. He left out the subtext, but it was clear enough in his blazing sharingan glare.

_I don't want to see you here again. Ever._

"Kakashi," Sasuke growled in warning, but the blonde had stood up, face hidden in the shadows, and arms limp at his sides. When he spoke, his voice was amazingly sharp and distinct.

"No. He's right. I'm not _safe_ to be around. In fact," Naruto swung around, eyes wild as they met three sharingan orbs, and a feral grin plastered against his face. Now or never. "I'll kill you if you get in my way."

They didn't, and he left, exiting with a leap through a gaping hole in the wall. He was almost out of the entire building when his acute hearing registered the sound of a heavy body dropping inertly to the floor, and lighter footsteps running after him. Trailing him.

Not this time. He wouldn't come back this time.

"Naruto!" The desperate cry from behind bounced rapidly from wall to wall, and for a moment, Naruto almost stopped and turned.

But not this time.

This time, not even Sasuke could stop him.

"_NARUTO!"_

.o.  
Present  
.o.

He could feel as the wind changed, the now southerly blown air bringing with it the faint scents and sounds his refined senses acknowledged as travelers camping. Ninja, for only fighting warriors passed through these hills armed, as the soft clanging of metal scraping metal indicated. Ninja; people he no longer desired to be with.

Naruto still retained a healthy curiosity in the going ons of his old village, but that had long since passed the stages of investigation. It had been so long since he had heard any news of the Leaf, or any of their other neighboring villages, for that matter. And he supposed it wasn't of great significance to him now anyways.

There had been a time when he had longed for company, any company, in the early stages of his escape, that it had hurt almost physically. But not anymore. It had been_ far _too long since the time he would have joined the camping unit, regardless of their home villages. Naruto turned, slightly disgusted with himself, and headed downhill where he wouldn't be spotted.

But never had he expected _her_ to be there.

The swirl of leaves around the figure subsided in the arrival technique Naruto had come to associate with only one individual from the Village Hidden in the Leaves. A man he had no desire to see again, irrespective of the fact he had trained under the jounin for a good portion of his life. But today, he had been completely caught off guard.

She stood there, looking not at all unlike the way she had four years ago. Sakura had matured though, grown into a lovely figure of eighteen, long fingers delicately plucking herbs from their stems, oblivious to the fact that that the boy from her childhood stood shocked and concealed in the shadows of an old oak not two hundred feet away.

She couldn't see him.

She couldn't _ever_ see him.

Naruto. Was. Dead.

But gods above, he wanted to see her. Talk to her. Ask her how she was and where she'd been, and… how was Sasuke?

For some reason unknown to the unacknowledged blonde, he could not begin to comprehend _why_ the absence of his raven haired friend from his side had managed to hurt him in ways he could not possibly fathom. He did not need to understand. He had merely accepted the feeling, and eventually, moved on. Or tried to.

The blonde shook his head ruefully and pulled tighter around his face the hood of the ANBU cloak he had stolen the day he had departed, consciously adjusting the mask he had hastily thrown on to assure himself it was secure.

No, it wouldn't do for her, for _anyone,_ to find out that Naruto Uzumaki was still alive. Maybe if he had only-

The blonde teen managed to dodge to the right as twin shurikens embedded themselves in the old oak where he had been formerly standing with a soft _thud thud_, glinting innocently in the afternoon sun.

…_the fuck?_

He glared around the tree through his mask at the woman who had not paused in her work to look at the person she had nearly assassinated. Her voice was stronger than it had been in his memories.

"Please come out and join me. It's not nice to sulk about like that in the shadows, watching me like some sort of prey." Her light voice held more confidence and assurance than had ever been there before, and remained playful as she finally threw over her shoulder, "One might take you for the perverted stalker type, eyeing young women like that," she chided softly, casting a glance directly into the gloom where the teen was silently swearing.

The two weapons implanted in the tree were joined by a kunai, wrapped in a dark explosive tag, crackling angrily at eye level to the boy. With a long drawn out groan, Naruto sidestepped into the light, walking swiftly and confidently away from the tree, hands up in the air in mock surrender, impressively ignoring the debris falling from the sky as the tree exploded quite powerfully behind him. Sakura raised a thin eyebrow at the display. She'd been expecting a yell, or a mad dash in the least. Well, _this_ was going to be interesting.

"My apologies…miss," he said slowly, roughening his voice into a deeper and more masculine sound as he approached the pink haired girl. It wasn't too difficult. The gravelly noise that emitted from his lips, courtesy of the long years spent with so little conversation, sounded so unlike his childhood racket.

"You wear an ANBU mask, and yet you cannot manage to successfully conceal yourself from me?" the woman scoffed, slightly teasing, and still rightfully weary of the stranger in ANBU clothing before her. She had stopped gathering herbs and was standing straight, hand on hip, waiting for a response.

It hit him at that moment, however briefly, and he wasn't surprised with the sudden realization. He didn't love this woman before him. She was lovely enough to put his trademark Harem Jutsu to shame, but, it just wasn't there. Not the feelings nor the adoration he had once held for his childhood friend. Who knew what had possibly changed that, because _he_ certainly hadn't an idea. Maybe it was the chuunin exams, in a time and place they fought for their lives and for the lives of their friends in a situation that demanded their best. Or perhaps it had begun even _before_ that, but he had always been too thick headed to realize. It might have been those years that they had spent together, the three teammates of team seven, and coming to respect the girl before him, loving her and protecting her as he would a younger sister. Or maybe… and his mind reeled at the impact of the blunt _truth _in the thought…

Maybe it had been Sasuke.

"When you're done studying me like a piece of meat, I'd like an answer, please," the woman probed, eyeing him equally weary.

Naruto took a moment to fully appreciate the view before him, seeing his grown friend through a stranger's eyes, and he noted the changes they had both undergone. He was a good head taller than the girl, who had also gained a few inches since he had last seen her. She raised a delicate eyebrow, waiting for his shielded gaze to finally meet hers..

"Who says I was trying to hide?" he replied casually, twirling a small kunai around one finger; a habit he had long since picked up to mask his insecurities and discomforts. She frowned, obviously disliking the question that had taken away her control of the situation. Her hand lingered around the pouch on her leg, fingertips innocently teasing the mouth of the weapon holster.

"Where are you from?"

"Around." He waved a hand around dismissively, but did not elaborate, a small smirk tugging on his lips as she slowly lost her temper. Around her, he had always learned to keep his cool. As cool as one can be in the heat of the afternoon in a stuffy black cloak and air restricting mask, anyway.

"We're on the outskirts of the mist village, is this your home?" Even as she said it, his eyes caught the subtle tensing in her muscles, and the twitch of her fingers towards the pouch on her thigh. What had happened between the two countries since he left? Apparently nothing good.

"Sure. Might as well be." Naruto raised his hands again as the kunoichi dove a hand into the pouch, eyeing him wearily. "But I assure you, so long as you don't attack me, I won't go through the bother of hurting you. Deal?" Though his eyes danced behind the stolen feline ANBU mask, his heart squeezed slightly. This girl before him was no longer the young and innocent teammate who cowered from a fight. She looked like, and with all likelihood, _was_, ready to kill him on the spot if he proved dangerous. And probably even if he _didn't._

Sakura glared daggers at him as if reading his thoughts, not removing her hand, now curled around two metallic weapons.

"You wear the Leaf head protector, and yet you're from the Mist Village?"

He winced inwardly, subconsciously maneuvering the arm he had looped his old headband around behind his back. It had possessed too many close and dear memories to discard with his vibrant orange clothing.

"I…travel."

"You're a spy," she accused, tossing the blades at him. Her brows knit together as he easily sidestepped, sweeping an arm out gracefully to catch the tip of one of her weapons between two fingers.

"I think," Naruto replied, voice laughing as he threw the kunai back to land at her feet, "I would make a better assassin than a spy, don't you agree?"

"You won't get away," she growled back, lunging at him, kunai raised. He dodged, and the girl ran past him until she realized she hadn't connected the blade to his skin.

"Well now, _that_ was fun," he said dryly. A trickle of sweat ran down his cheek, paused at his jaw line, then stormed down his neck as she smiled sweetly at him. _Smiled? _She wasn't supposed to be the one smiling…

"Oh, but that wasn't what I was aiming for."

Naruto realized, perhaps too late, that what she held in her delicate fingers were strands of chakra threads, gleaming menacingly in the sunlight. He followed their shining lines with his eyes with growing unease across the distance between the two, and then, he understood.

"_Shit!"_

Sakura tugged the thread, peering intently at the teen as the thin wires snapped through the clasp that held the ANBU mask to the boy's face.

"Fucking _shit!"_ Naruto spun around, trying to hide his face in the depths of the shadows his hood provided, hoping that no spikes of unruly blonde hair had become visible in the loss of his ceramic mask.

Had she _seen?_

"I've got you now, _Mister ANBU_, so turn around, nice and slow," she said smugly.

"Like hell," he muttered, forming seals with his hands in rapid motions. He _had_ to get out of here. He felt so unprotected without his mask. If she _knew_, which she obviously didn't quite yet, he wasn't sure if he could handle it. Not after what he had done to them all. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and then without a warning of any kind, was spun around by the girl with unwomanly strength, having time only to throw an arm over the lower half of his face, nose buried in the crook the limb. When exposed, which half _were_ you supposed to cover? The loose sleeve of the garment drooped low over the boy's chin, and for a moment, he met her eyes, radiant blue with jade green.

"Hidden Leaf Concealing Technique!"

A roaring mass of leaves blew in, and Sakura shielded her eyes from the swirling hurricane of particles.

As they died down again, she dropped her arm from her eyes, squinting through the dust it had aroused from the ground.

He was gone.

And he had taken his mask.

Sakura put her head in her cupped hands, feeling rather faint and weak as she slowly massaging the tension from her face while mulling over the other man's presence. His face, what she had seen in that brief moment was just _too_ familiar. It was uncanny and eerie.

There was only one person in the world she knew of with eyes that shade of pure ocean blue. But Naruto…

…was dead.

.o.

"Dammit, Kyuubi, that was _too close!_" Naruto picked up another rock, hurling it at that stone wall of his cave, and watching as it shattered into millions of smaller pieces.

"**You idiot. Do you really think it was _my_ fault?"**

Naruto's eyes flashed a dangerous red, and he scooped up another pebble, cursing as it ricocheted, a fragment slicing his cheek. But it was his own fault. There was _nothing_ that he could pin blame on Kyuubi for this time. Not even for being alone.

From crimson to purple hues, Naruto's eyes raked the floor of the barren cave, his shelter and home for the past four years, landing on the weak ceramic mask, silently debating whether or not to dash it too against the stone.

"I hate you, demon," he muttered tiredly, slumping to the floor in disgust. "I really do."

"**And I to you, Kit."** But there was no malice, no anger, no hatred. Just understanding, and a sorrow that ran deeper than blood.

"I want to see them all again, Kyuubi," Naruto confessed, now staring at the scarred wall he had vented his fury on only moments ago. "I don't want to be alone…"

"**Then don't be, you whiner. Nobody _forced_ you to leave."**

For a moment, his heart fluttered with hope at the neutral words. Was there really a way that he could…? But-

"That's stupid. I'm dead to them, remember?" he snapped crossly. "They can't know I'm alive, and I don't exactly blend in with the crowd, if you know what I mean. I don't figure I'd have a huge welcoming party either; not after what I did."

Naruto let the bitterness of his situation consume him, wavering in between moods of depression and fits of anger. He had no right, no right at all to feel sorry for himself. He would be the very last to forgive his sins, and he doubted the village had even started entertaining the idea yet.

"**Then tomorrow, let them die. I couldn't care less."** Naruto's head shot up, though there was nothing physical he could rest his stunned gaze on.

"What, what do you mean by that, fox?" he growled numbly, fleetingly accommodating the thought that the statement was the monster's sick idea of some twisted joke, and then just as swiftly recalling that the Kyuubi did not joke. Part of him wished he hadn't heard the demon correctly, that there had been some miscommunication between the two, but then, there was never mistaking words sent through the parapsychological connection the two shared. "What the _hell_ is that supposed to mean?"

"**Don't tell me you haven't already felt it," **the demon rumbled. Naruto winced.

He had. And he knew.

"Don't tell me you can't already smell the death in the air, and feel the bloodlust pouring from both sides." 

He could, and louder than words it rang through the peaceful meadow, this thirst for blood. There would be a battle here by dawn, he knew, and the arriving Mist nin would slaughter those of the Leaf before they knew what was on them. The Leaf nin were loyal, and they were strong, but the Mist were an inexhaustible and overpowering force. And Konoha's best would not stand a chance.

Naruto felt torn. Trapped between the desire to help his friends survive what was slated to be mass murder, and then, maintaining the illusion of his improper death.

On the battlefield, _anything_ could happen. And if worst came to worst, there would be no more pretending. What would they think, his irretrievable friends, as they unmasked him after the battle, after the body count was up one more than they'd dispatched? What would happen when they found out it was _him?_ But in his heart, imperative pathways and choices aside, Naruto knew what he would ultimately choose. And he hated himself for it. For his inability to keep a resolve he had signed with blood.

"Fine, I'll go," he snapped back irritably, though secretly relieved. Oh, it felt good, this chance to see them, just one more time. "For reconnaissance only. _But_," he growled at the leering beast, "I _cannot_ reveal who I am, you got that, fox?"

"**As you say, Kit."**

But they both knew the words were more for Naruto's sake than for the fiery demon within him.

"After this, there's no going back on my past, no matter what," he said, completely unfolding his head protector until it was nothing more than a large square of cloth in his hands. Clumsily, for he'd never worn it in this fashion before, Naruto slipped the blue fabric over his hair as a bandana, completely obscuring his telltale blonde locks. The fabric was cool against his heated skin, and he savored the feeling for a moment before verbally continuing. "We go, deliver the damn message, and get the hell out of Dodge. After this, It's all over, Kyuubi. All over."

He felt the beast inside of him smirk, nodding slightly.

"**If you wish it, Kit, then so be it."**

**...  
A/N  
...  
Hey! I hope you like this so far... though I know it's a bit fast paced. If enough people like this (cough cough -reviews- cough cough) I'd be happy to make the other chapters longer and, well, more detailed. Those of you wondering about Nothing to Lose, I WILL update it someday, have no fear! Just not anytime soon, sorry. :-( On the other hand, 100 reviews as of yesterday! Thank you all so much! Anyway, hope you like this, and please review!**


	2. It's all sticks and stones

'**.o.'  
-+.:In Leaps and Bounds:.+-  
**'**.o.'**

**Ok, your one long chapter, as a thanks for all you AMAZING reviewers out there! Almost 17 pages long, this is. :-p Anyway, hope you like this, and don't kill me for making Sasuke a prick. He'll smarten up later. With luck, this will answer some of the questions you all have.**

**º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø,¸¸ º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø  
**_The sticks and stones,  
__They break my bones;  
__And still the words hurt me.  
_**º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø,¸¸ º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø**

**-Chapter Two-**

She could still _see_ those haunting blue eyes, even hours later, sitting by the campfire with the old rookie nine… minus the two most important members. But, even if it _had_ been possible, those eyes could not possibly belong to Naruto.

…Naruto…had always obnoxious. Always rambunctious and annoying, but, she also knew the kind and compassionate side he rarely showed around others. The side of him that brought her small pink flowers her name had come from, and had once long ago promised to bring Sasuke back. Those eyes today, those eyes displayed neither. In fact, they had said _nothing_ to her. Naruto had always been expressional, readable, and though he hid so much behind his smile, his eyes had never lied.

This was not Naruto, and would never _be _Naruto, because as much as she wished it weren't so, Naruto was dead. She had watched as they buried his body in the ground four years before, and cried with the very few others attending as they scattered dirt over the lonely hole. Though she had spent days standing at the foot of the grave, she had never really been alone. Not in the sense that she felt Naruto's spirit with her- in fact, she had felt nothing- but in that a silent shadow was always watching.

Throughout the days, and then the weeks, and eventually the months, it had become an abnormal sight for Sasuke to move from his teammate's side. As far as she knew, the silent teen had not cried, not even as the earth covered the casket, or the night the villagers set fire to his deceased friend's apartment.  
Again.  
But surely he'd been upset, and would have incapacitated them all, if it hadn't been something Naruto wouldn't have wanted.

Sasuke had changed, and though the rest of the village had long since moved on, the teen grew if possible more distant from the people surrounding him, despite everyone's best efforts to help him. He was dying inside, but as to what, it was anyone's best guess. Hurt? Loss? Anger? ...Guilt? None of them had imagined that such a person, even a person like Naruto, could have touched so deeply in the icy boy's heart.

"Hey now, I know that look," Kiba whispered gently in her ear, startling Sakura out of her musings. Chouji was at the climax of a mission story, all attention focused on him as his arms pinwheeled out of control as he explained his narrow escape in exaggerated detail.

"What?" Sakura looked innocently back at him, blinking guiltlessly up at the dog lover. "I haven't a clue what you're-"

"Sakura, listen to me." A warm hand gripped her forearm, and she couldn't find the heart to pull away. "It's been _four years_. Only Sa-" he faltered slightly, throwing a weary glance at the tent pitched only a few feet away before continuing, "Only one of us still seems affected by it. What's got you so riled up today? I thought- I thought we'd all agreed to move on… for _his_ sake."  
_No names. They wouldn't say the names._

Sakura hesitated for a moment, not sure if she should be telling even Kiba about the man today. To be honest, his sudden appearance had her spooked, and she wasn't sure if she was ready to confront the feelings of something that reminded her so much of the past she had treasured.

"Today…" she began, unsteadily, "I was out picking herbs…" Kiba nodded in encouragement, waiting for his friend to continue. Sakura took a deep breath, becoming uncomfortably aware of the silent shadow that hovered in the corner of her eyes. "And… well, I met someone." The girl dropped her head in her hands, resting elbows on her knees as she whispered, "His _eyes._ Kiba, I've nev- I've only once seen eyes like those…"

"Sakura." Kiba gave her an understanding and compassionate look, but his voice remained firm. There were some cases, and very few at that, where it was just better to remind them of reality. "Naruto. Is. _Dead._"

"No, I know that," she assured him hurridly, "but it's just," she paused momentarily, concentrating hard. "His _eyes._" A slight breeze picked up, blowing pink strands of hair back into the wind, and she finally looked Kiba straight on. "Have you ever seen eyes so… have you ever seen eyes as unique as Naruto's?"

"We saw the _body,_ Sakura," he pleaded, trying to make his friend understand so they could all just bury the past and move on. But, he really had nothing to fear for his medic friend.

"I know," Sakura said, suddenly resolved. "It wasn't him. There's no way it even _could_ have been him. I just- It got me unsettled for a moment, that's all."

"It's okay." And he sounded as if he meant it. "We all understand what you mean." Kiba sighed, looking deep into the fire, and then let his eyes travel up into the pitch black sky. "I _do_ know… I know what you mean." He inhaled the night's breeze, then let it out, slow and controlled. "The rookie nine just isn't the same without… them."

Sakura didn't need to ask about the sudden change of speech. It had been clear for ages now that the childhood friends had lost more than just Naruto that day. Without another word, she stood up, turned, and walked into the dark.

It hadn't been Kiba's fault. It hadn't been anger or sorrow or even guilt that had driven her away from her friends. It had been the solid presence she had come to recognize, even when others could not detect it. Sakura had trained with Sasuke for far too long to _not_ let his silent presence go unnoticed. And Naruto was a subject _nobody_ could broach around the now moody and unpredictable teen. She had possibly gone too far this time, letting him hear what he had heard.

She didn't want, and didn't expect the man to follow her, so when gloved hands slipped around her mouth and waist, expelling a foreign aura behind her, all signals and red flags went up in her mind.

_Intruders._

"Don't scream, it's just me." A hand spun her about, so she grabbed the other one, jerking it off her mouth when she realized just who it was.

"_Just_ you?" she hissed indignantly. "_Just You?"_ Even though her senses screamed at her to run, to yell for backup, she found herself snapping at the man in low undertones. "As much as I know about you, Mister ANBU, _you're_ the enemy."

She poked the man in the chest, angered that the layers of clothing absorbed most of the impact.

"So, maybe I am, but that's not what I came here for." He cocked his head to the side, smirking at her from behind his mask.

"What then?"

"Have a moment?" And without waiting for an answer, the cloaked man had drawn the woman into the deep shadows of an old oak tree. The thick scent of smoke from the campfire still wafted through the air, and for some reason, Sakura was reminded of Christmas night. But the man cut straight to the chase, leaving no time to wonder why she was thinking such absurd thoughts.  
"You're surrounded. This camp, the people in it, by tomorrow morning, there won't be anything left of it." How was one _supposed_ to go about telling a girl of his past that if she didn't get her ass, and everyone else's around her in gear, they were all going to die?

Sakura blanched.  
"Is that a _threat?_ Well, you've certainly picked the wrong person to ransom, buddy."

Naruto easily caught the elbow that was meant to be jammed into his stomach, carefully maneuvering it away from his body.

"I came here to _warn _you, not _kill_ you. I'll save something like that for another date when I can fully appreciate my handiwork," he joked.

Sakura didn't find it too amusing.

"Then why the hell would you warn us?" She had always been skeptical of his reasoning for things. Funny that it hadn't changed in all these years.

"Look, I'm not going to explain my reasons, but if you don't trust me, get Neji or Hinata to use that Byakugan of theirs, and _they can't miss it._"

"Oh, okay," she whispered dumbly, finding herself _trusting_ this man she knew nothing about; trusting someone who was just as likely to stab her in the back as to help her against the enemy.

"Good."

And he was gone.

She didn't feel him leave, didn't miss the lingering sense of his hand holding her…his presence just _disappeared_, like he was never there to start with. What technique had he…?

"…wait…" Sakura stopped dead in her tracks, techniques forgotten and muscles clenching anxiously. "_Shit!_" she screamed, ignoring the guards who rushed to the scene, katanas drawn and at the ready. "Dammit, come _back!_" She had never told the strange man about the two Hyugas, and their abilities on this mission were a guarded secret. "Why the hell couldn't you have told us _more?_" she whispered, staring off into the forest where she assumed he was hiding. If anyone was there, they did not confront the confused chuunin. She sighed in defeat. "I just hope that... you really are on our side."

"Sakura." A light hand rested on her shoulder, and she spun around, hoping the masked man had returned, but also recognizing the voice as one of the other chuunin that had come on the mission.

"I'm fine," she said, slightly more angrily than she had intended. "Just, get Neji and Hinata, and have them look over there." Sakura pointed off into the distance, not really knowing where the enemy was _supposed_ to be hiding, but wanting to seem in control of what she hadn't a clue about. The man had never really indicated exact locations, but if they were truly surrounded, it wouldn't really _matter_ where they looked, right?

"With all due respect, I don't see anything…"

"I don't need your eyes, Kina, I need Neji's. Get him.

"I can see just as far as any-"

"No, I need him to _look._"

"Oh!" The other chuunin's eyes lit in understanding. "Like with the Byak-"

"Yes," she snapped irratably. "Just _go."_ She rubbed her temples, the edgings of a headache coming on.

It was going to be yet another sleepless night, she could already tell.

.o.

"So," she asked anxiously, staring at the boy intently as if she could read the answers she wanted off his skin. "What do you see?"

There was a pause, and then a sigh.

"Well, it doesn't look good."

"How many, do you think?" Sakura pried, taking the boy's statement as an affirmative of the enemy surrounding.

A frown crossed the boy's pale features, and he concentrated harder, more veins popping out along his eyes.

"That's the thing I don't understand," he muttered, head roving back and forth. "They keep _disappearing_. I thought at first they were using chakra to move about…"

"But…?" Shikamaru and Kiba stood close by, watching their old teammate work.

"…but they never reappear again. Are all our nin accounted for?"

Sakura smiled, suddenly understanding. "Don't worry," she said, and all eyes turned back onto her. "Don't worry, they aren't going anywhere. We have a… ah…_friend_… on the outside." She gestured with her hand, taking in their surroundings. Although Neji's back was turned on her, she knew the teen saw it just as clearly as if she had been standing before him. Now, she was confident. It would be a bad mistake to have that mystery of a man as their enemy.

"So they're…?"

"Yeah. They're dead."

"But, there's over two hundred living, breathing bodies out there, regardless of how many are picked off." When Neji turned back to the group, his eyes had gone white again, completely relaxed. "That makes worse than a two-to-one ratio combat in their favor."

"What're you planning?" Shikimaru asked from the sidelines, already forming a backup plan for when they failed. _Thinking Ahead,_ he modestly called it, but those thoughts were often what had saved them in past battles.

"A surprise attack. It's our only chance." Shikimaru nodded his agreement and Neji glanced once more around, then looked at his cousin, who nodded shyly. "Gather our members, we're leaving as soon as possible."

.o.

It was like… watching lambs to the slaughter, he decided, the way they lined up and were cut down quicker than they could be replaced.

But he had made a promise. This was not his battle to interfere in. Not his village to fight for. Not anymore.

_Coward,_ his mind unnecessarily voiced off._ You just can't stand to relive your past._

He growled, but only because it was true.

Naruto crouched low on his branch, hand wrapped firmly around the wood to stabilize himself, wholly aware of Neji's Byakugan eyes alert to his position.

But even Byakugan could not penetrate his stolen ANBU mask and see the face beneath. It was the only thing concealing his identity, and he had long since learned to secrete his chakra flow, so as to hide its telltale aura from snooping opponents.

Naruto carelessly caught the kunai speeding through the air towards the back of his head, (or maybe it was his neck, he didn't really care), and without tearing his eyes from the battle, sent the little strip of metal flying right back over his shoulder, ignoring the succeeding _thump!_ And soft gurglings on the ground a few hundred meters away. Now just wasn't the time to play around.

"**If you're going to be involving yourself, kit, why not do it down there, where there's more fun?"** the demon suggested slyly, pacing his cage as the bloodlust rose in him.

"Because, I told you, I'm not going back on my past. I'd… be too tempted to stay there," the blonde admitted sheepishly. It was true. If he went, there wasn't any saying if he would find the strength to leave. It just wasn't in him to do so.

The demon growled in annoyance, drawing his deep claws along the steel floor, and Naruto winced at the screech as large gouge marks appeared, and then disappeared, the cage as immortal as its inhabitant.

"Shut the fuck up, Kyuubi."

"**Dammit, kit, I'm _hungry."_**

But sealed demons didn't require food. He was starving for death. Thirsting for blood. A fight to make him feel truly alive. And though he'd never openly admit it, Naruto was too.

He hadn't been really alive in over four years.

"They won't find out?" he asked the demon inside of him reluctantly, and thin fox ears perked in response.

"**No. No, kit, they don't ever have to know. To them, what more will you be besides another fighting body?"**

If the fox had hands, he'd be surely rubbing them together. Blood. Blood would be on his teeth again, soon.

"What's to stop you from-"

"**Just don't loose control again."**

Naruto mentally eyed the demon, skeptical, and not fully trusting.

"Just don't try anything that puts us both in danger."

He didn't wait for an answer.

.o.

Sakura had long since given up on fighting the onslaught of enemy attacks, instead settling for tended the wounded in a slightly less disrupted section of the field. Brow knit together in concentration, she had entrusted her safety to none other than Konoha's most youthful ninja; Rock Lee, who was doing a spectacular show of bashing heads and crying at the youthfulness of it all in attempts to show off to his inattentive companion.

"Oh, Gai-sensei, if only you were here, I would make you so proud," the man cried into the air, throwing a punch over his shoulder, and not so much as glancing back as his foe fell unconscious behind him.

A hand touched the pink haired kunoichi's shoulder, and she frowned in frustration, not breaking her gaze from her patient's wound.

"Not now, Lee," she murmured, slightly annoyed that the teen would bother her at such a crucial moment as this. "Can't you see I'm working?" The body in her hands twitched slightly, as if sensing her failing concentration, and she applied more chakra, calming the spasms now wracking the man's frame. Just a little more pressure…

"What was that, Sakura-chan?" a voice called a few feet away. Sakura froze.

"Lee…?" The hand on her shoulder squeezed uncomfortably tight, and she flung her head around, a hopeless attempt to identify the person holding her, who by all misfortune was not her energetic friend. Out of her peripheral vision, shining talons of armor gleamed threateningly from the man's fingers, claws that could punch effortlessly through leather or metal…or skin. She shivered.

"I don't like what you're doing, little girl," a voice sneered from behind her. The sound was predictably male, but what unnerved the young medic most was the thin blade pressed none too gently to her throat.

"What- what would you have me do?" she stammered out, trying to think clearly through the haze of fear. _Buy time._ All she needed to do was buy time, and hope that Lee finished off whoever was currently occupying him, and see her dire situation.

"These soldiers-" the man gave a good hard kick to the side of her previous patient, who emptied his lungs of air, coughing up jets of blood. "They keep popping up from the ground and attacking my men," the man leered, pulling her up to her feet by clumps of think pink hair and shaking her like a rag doll. He leaned in close, lips greeting her ear, his musty breath heavy and rotten, reeking slightly of booze. "Now why do you think _that_ is, little girl?"

"Because," she answered calmly, despite the rising fear catching hold of her throat, "_I saved them!"_ Sakura spun about, the tip of the knife leaving a fine trail of blood around her neck as she pulled back her right arm, shoving it deep into the man's -where ever- and smirked in satisfaction as the crunch of bones resounded through the air.

And then fell back in horror as pain washed through her wrist and fingers, now swelling at the intense pace only shattered limbs could manage. That, she could heal, but not while her attacker stood towering above her, laughing as he rubbed his unscratched armor.

He was tall, to say in the least, taller than Kakashi or Gai, or any of the other teachers in Konoha, but that wasn't what set the man apart from everyone else in the meadow. The sturdy armor the man wore had been fitted to resemble some type of legendary beast. The three inch talons that fitted the tips of his fingers like sharply exaggerated fingernails were deadly and red with spilled blood, as was his helmeted head, silver fangs and horns dripping as if he had rammed right through his foe.

"I tire of our game, little girl. I'll put an end to your little magic tricks here and now."

Sakura scuffled backwards like a crab caught between rocks, and the giant man raised his clawed hand, the sharp points slanted down for an accurate cut.

The pink haired medic found that as much as she desired to just close her eyes, not be forced witness her own death, she no longer had the strength or will to do anything but stare as those daggers came closer and closer and…

The man had stopped. Confusion flickered into his eyes- the only visible section of his helmeted face- as he turned around to acknowledge the distraction.

The hand of her her patient- he wasn't dead?- was wrapped as firmly as the injured man could manage around her enemy's thick and armored leg. The jounin's body was sprawled at odd angles across the leafy ground, drag marks through the dirt indicating his struggle to reach the two before he was too late. He mouthed something to the girl on the ground. Something she couldn't quite make out.

The man laughed.

Then kicked the Leaf ninja square in the face, sending blood and fragments of bone flying through the air. He cried out in pain, trying to cover his bleeding nose with a broken arm, and failing miserably.

The armored Mist nin turned his back on Sakura, an escape she dearly needed, but something about leaving her dying helper to the mercy of this man made leaving out of the question.

"_STOP IT!"_ she screamed as she realized the jounin was pinned at the throat by his new attacker's foot. "You'll _kill_ him!"

"Good," was the response, and he increased the pressure.

The Leaf jounin mouthed the word again, and finally, Sakura understood.

"_Run."_

But it was too late.

Leaving the dead ninja staring blankly on the muddy ground, the armored nin turned on her, grinning mischievously as he raised his claws once more.

And this time, there was nothing stopping him.

Sakura sent a frantic glance to where Lee had been fighting, and found that the teen was swamped fighting twelve others, though the boy was far from daunted. She could hear his hazy chanting in the background, as if all the other noises had died down.

"Forty-five, Gai sensei, forty-_six_, Gai sensei," the boy continued, dropping another enemy every number.

"Little girl…" 

She wouldn't look though. She refused to watch the man draw nearer and nearer. Her weapons long exhausted, and her hand swollen past use, it didn't matter anymore. She _wasn't_ getting out of this one.

"_Little girl…_" The voice was penetrating her mind, forcing her head around against her will. "I want to hear you _scream._"

She bit her tongue, and vaguely felt the pulse of blood between her teeth. Those claws were raising, raising… and she couldn't shut her eyes.

Falling, descending down on her…

And everything went black… though she couldn't fathom _why._ Had she blacked out? Had he killed her, and this was death? Had he…?

Her vision seemed to wave, she realized with a lurch of nausea, as if a black banner were obscuring her view. _No,_ she decided with a calmness she didn't know she had. _Not a banner… a…_

A cloak…? But where had she…?

"Mister ANBU!" she exclaimed in relief, finally realizing what stood between her and the fate delivered to the young jounin she had been mending.

"Hey," was the gruff response, and for a moment, Sakura numbly watched thin drops of crimson tumble to the ground. And as much as he tried to act cool and unrushed, she could tell by the harsh intervals of his breath that he had sprinted quite a distance to get here on time.  
She was saved.  
She was fully confident in the abilities of the man before her, and the weight seemed to lift from her shoulders. _Maybe, _she thought with the weak rational that only comes with shock or extreme blood loss. _Maybe this man would help them win the battle. Maybe they would all be marching home… victorious… the next night._

It was a comforting thought.

She watched as the blood beaded on the tips of silver claws, then dropped gracefully to the ground, splashing noiselessly, before the dirt greedily absorbed the red liquid.

…until she finally grasped where it was all coming from. The two men, though separated by a height of about three heads, seemed equally matched in strength, both pushing on the other who refused to yield.

The Mist nin's sharp talons had embedded themselves deeply in the boy's forhead skin, hidden under the mask, fingers tediously raking forward, making the younger nin growl.

Sakura could see the man was having difficulties seeing, the blood running thick into his eyes, more dangerous than sweat. His only chance now was to take the mask off and wipe away the offending liquid, and with that thought came an idea. Sakura leaned forward, waiting for the man to make his move. She'd been waiting a long time to see what was really under the mask. It was almost more tempting to see than the mystery that was Kakashi-sensei's face. At least she and her teammates had given up on finding that out long ago.

But the man made no move to remove it.

"I'll show you, _boy_," the mist nin growled through the struggle. "I'll show you what it's like…" A giant claw slashed down and out, leaving behind three identical gouges in the ANBU's arm. "To mess with _adults._" Two more slashes, six more wounds…

"Stop!" Sakura screamed, but the two were deaf to her pleas. "Stop Mister ANBU!" He _had _to remove the mask! It was obvious the man could no longer see, and without eyesight to guide his movement- this was hopeless! "Please," she whispered. "Please, stop."

Naruto's opponent was slowly gaining on him, pushing him lower and lower into the ground, and for a moment, an idea flashed through his mind. An escape.

…but not one he could safely use. Not in front of Sakura.

"You're failing, little boy," the mist nin whispered into his ear. "You're failing, and you know what?" A large sneer grew on the man's face as he laughed harshly, rotten breath brushing against the teen's ear. "I'm going to kill her."

Naruto growled, the anger and frustration rising like bile to his throat. He could do it. He could escape now and save his friend, but at what price was he willing to pay? It would expose him! It-

"But," the man leered, his attacks never wavering, "I think I'll have a little _fun_ with the wench before I-"

"Kage Bunshin no jutsu!"

_It was over._

It was over. He'd win, but he'd loose. He'd live, but inside… inside he would…

Sakura gasped. She didn't know whether to cry or laugh as over fifty replications entered the fighting zone. Was this… could it be…?

"Naru…to?" She couldn't breathe, couldn't stop staring, damp eyes trained on the figure before her. The figure that had to, _had_ to be…her friend.

There was only one person she had ever known to master the forbidden technique.

The man didn't so much as glance her way, and second after second the clones around him popped out of existence as the teen slowly weakened. One more hit to the ribs, and half of the remaining disappeared in their signature poof of smoke. And then, a glowing blue ball of chakra. Clone hands kneading the ball with quick and even thrusts of fingers. The ball churned, rolled, squirmed, and then-

Dove straight into the man's chest.

_"Rasengan!"_

.o.

POV skip

.o.

Cracking. Bones snapping with the impact of the pure raw energy. Ribs- and fingers- and rivulets of blood over otherwise unstained silver.

Naruto stood perfectly still, back facing his pink haired companion, allowing her to watch the damage he had inflicted on his opponent take its toll on the larger man.

The mist nin stumbled, gasping and doubling over, bending around the fist-shaped puncture in his armor as the masked man before him unceremoniously jerked his hand back, cradling the damaged limb to his chest.

"I've got, I've got plenty more…of those," Naruto coughed, his blood streaking down the covered chin, and flying off in flecks as he gasped and choked. "I got plenty more of those…where…where that came from, _bastard._"

Whether he believed the bluffing man before him, or was in dire need of a medic, the man took off at an amazing sprint, disappearing through the trademark mist covering the battlefield.

Naruto took a step after the man, stumbled, and fell face first into the ground, and Sakura waited for him to stand back up.

And waited.

He didn't move.

Time was darkening the skies around them, and the clashes and energy slowly quieted to an occasional scream in the distance.

She had intended on walking to the fallen man- he needed medical attention!- but it was an impossible feat, Sakura quickly realized as the pain shot through her leg.

_Fractured ankle, possible internal bruising and bleeding,_ she unconsciously assessed.

"Na-ruto…? Naruto, get up," she whispered into the air, settling on crawling to the man's side, her clothing already rumpled and mud-stained. What more was another smudge, anyway? She reached out, finding the least injured section of torn shoulder to roll the prone figure over with.

The mask, close up, she realized, was not a cat as she had originally suspected. Thin whiskers and bright red and black designs decorated the smiling face of a fox. It was a little unnerving, she admitted to herself, the way the ceramic ANBU mask grinned up at her with such... such unanimalistic _humor._ Her fingers stretched forward, almost hooking the bottom of the covering, when a wet hand swung up, catching hold of hers in a frighteningly strong grip.

"Don't. _Touch_. Me!" The hand was crushing down on hers, forcing her wrist back against the joint, until she knew that if he didn't stop soon, it would snap.

"Naruto, _Stop!"_ she screamed, in fear and pain for herself, and for a second, doubting that _this_ was the boy who had plucked small dandelions from the mountainside for her to decorate her hair with all those years ago. Not like she had ever used them, anyway, but it was that untouchable innocence the boy held that was not residing in this figure below her. "Naru…!"

"I'm not Naruto!" the other snapped out forcefully, though the strength in his words did not extend past his voice. The hand that had been holding her released instantaneously, and dropped lifelessly back to his side. She had noted that though his right hand was incapable of such movement, his left was equally as powerful.

"…not… Naruto?" she questioned dumbly, struck by the thought that such a person had crushed her highest hopes. There was a long pause, and the body under her arched slightly in pain, trembling with the requirement of sleep his mind was slowly enforcing. A sleep he possibly would not wake from, if the bleeding continued.

The cloaked figure flinched as Sakura reached under his torn sleeve, placing cold and timid hands over the two nearest gashes, a light blue glow pulsing through her fingers and over the wounds. "I'm waiting for an answer," she said softly, concentrating and focusing her chakra. The man took two deep breaths, and then, eyes closed against the blood flooding them, (not that the woman noticed, anyway) he slurred tiredly-

"No, just- I'm just a friend."

If the answer startled the girl, she didn't show it, instead moving to the deepest cut, running parallel with two others down his side. The man's breath had steadily become more even, but Sakura was reaching her limits.

"I'm sorry," she whispered at the man. "But I won't do you any good like this."

Naruto, though he couldn't see what was happening, almost smiled when he felt the throb of chakra swell up beside him; Sakura, mending her sprained ankle. She had always been smart like that, knowing her limits and gauging her use in certain conditions. Certainly she would not be able to assist-carry an injured man back to the tents with a useless leg. It could endanger both of them, and she had noted that. Yes, Sakura had always been the sharpest of group seven.

"So," she murmured, not wanting to break the peaceful silence night had brought upon them with loud talk, "Who _are _you if- who are you if you're not…Naruto?"

But he didn't answer. For a moment, Sakura feared she had misjudged his injuries- were they deeper than she thought?- and the breath caught in her throat as she listened carefully in the dark.

And then, there it was. A breath, shallow, but the same life providing air…running through the man's lungs. "You're sleeping, aren't you, you giant baby?" she crooned, sidling around the quiet body so she could rest his head comfortably in her lap. For a moment, the young chuunin was struck with the irresistible urge to lift the mask, just once, and peer at those familiar features. It wouldn't be wrong, right? After all, she _had_ just saved him… _right?_

She brought a hand up, fingers gliding along the rim, itching to just _pull_ the damn thing off, but-

"You know, mister ANBU," she laughed softly, unbidden tears running down her dirty cheeks, "you know I never could get myself to… violate…to betray a friend's wishes." She sniffed, wiping the wetness off her face and smearing the grime in a messy streak across her nose. "I don't even _know_ you," she cried, "but it's okay. Any friend of _his_… they're- _you_ are… a friend of mine, okay?"

.o.

It was _her,_ he knew. There was no mistaking that chakra, that scent. The shadow flitted faster through the trees, honing in on that girl, weaving around bloodied bodies and cutting past low hanging branches.

It froze. Raising a kunai in cautious preparation, the figure made it's way slowly towards the struggling silhouette a distance away; a petite woman supporting an unconscious…Anbu member?…through the forest, inching back to the mass of tents far over the hill where the Leaf village had camped.

There was no going back now. The shadow was concealed not three feet from the woman, before he slowly emerged into the dim light provided by the cloud-covered full moon.

The woman gasped.

.o.

"Damn, Mister, mind helping me a little?"

The unconscious man made no response. But of course he wouldn't. Healing the wounded drained not only energy from the medic, but from the life force of the injured as well. It was a body's last defense, she supposed, to rely on that. After all, if the man had been conscious, the bleeding wouldn't have slowed down so much as it had.

This man, the pink haired girl grouched mentally, he was underweight by most standards, though by no means light. Sakura figured it would have been wiser to have healed her leg a little further before she decided to undertake on this task, but it was too late as it was, and she wasn't stopping now. They'd be doing a body check back at the camp by now, and it would by no means be good for her to be counted among the missing.

A shadow flickered to her left, and the woman jerked her head, eyes peering through the darkness of the trees that bordered the path she had taken. Though the main fighting had died down with the night, it was quite possible, and very likely there were still enemy nin lurking in the darkness, waiting for an opportunity like this. Someone weak with fatigue and bloodloss.

When nothing more moved, the girl stepped forward, her senses heightened with response to the danger. She had walked not more than twelve paces before a glint of metal caught her eye.

But too late.

She gasped, nearly dropping her precious charge as a figure seemingly materialized in front of her. The shadowy form slowly gained defining features, and her heart started pounding in her chest once more.

"Oh, Sasuke," she said breathlessly, "It's you."

Without a word, the man lean down, picking up the injured man with ease from the ground, and slinging him unceremoniously over his shoulder. Giving the medic one glance and possibly a nod, he started off between the trees again.

Sakura sighed in a relief she hadn't felt since they had left on the mission. It was over.

At least for tonight.

.o.

He moaned, and blinked blearily. His body, not by his will, was being shifted about, recklessly, he'd say, the voices all about him talking…talking…wouldn't they just shut up? Couldn't they see he was out of it, with a headache bigger than the Fourth of July? Dumb fucks, wouldn't know the difference if-

People…? There were people _around_ him?

Naruto shot up, immediately regretted it as he felt skin tear over a poorly healed abdomen, and he slunk back, realizing someone had only just propped him up into a sitting position against something _hard._ And it sure hurt like a bitch too. His eyes fluttered open once more, and he only just made out a hand, reaching towards him…

"Wait!"

That voice…

"Mister ANBU, please, let go!"

Calm and steady and… Sakura…?

Yes, it was, and he realized with a little annoyance that he had instinctively grabbed her arm and was once again proceeding to squeeze it out of existence. So he let it go. Ah, well, maybe later then.

"Whadda you wan'?" he slurred, only slightly embarrassed by his seemingly drunken state, all the while drugged up on whatever medicines she had managed to leek into his system before now.

There was clearly something wrong with this whole idea of Sakura leaning in so close to him, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was. She and Naruto had been teammates for years, and there were few secrets surviving between the two. So what was the…?

Oh, but he wasn't Naruto.

…

…

…

"Shhhhhiiiiiitttttttt," he mumbled in a delayed timing only suitable to him, flinging an arm fiercely over his face, probably hours too late to cover what _must _have been discovered…

But his arm, bleeding angrily with the sudden jarring, was met with cool ceramic…not his heated wet skin.

…she hadn't…?

"No, I didn't look," she mused halfheartedly, carefully taking his arm and settling it once more on the ground beside the injured boy, and Naruto could detect slight regret, as if it had been a long debate with herself that had finally won out.

He groaned out something incomprehensible along the lines of "good", but she never really heard him.

"Mister ANBU, you're still hurt. Please, remove your mask if you won't let me."

_Like hell, bitch!_

"…why…?"

She frowned, and he was worried she'd hit him, and kinda cringed into himself. Or thought he had, but in reality, he hadn't the strength to do so. It wasn't funny. Sakura was _scary_.

"Because you're bleeding, and if more of it gets into your eyes, they could become infected," she worded out slowly for him. Was it because he was half conscious at the moment, or because she thought him dull? Huh, well, it wasn't like things ever changed, really.

And then he really _did_ realize she wasn't kidding, that little brat. Kyuubi, he sensed, was working hard trying to fix the internal damage to his system, so it looked like his eyes were on there own for some time, and they _hurt,_ dammit!

"I'm sorry," he muttered, and truly meant it. "But I just can't do that. My identity is really all that I have, and I'd like to keep it a little while longer…"

If she knew the truth…

"Please, I don't know how bad the injuries are, you could bleed to death!"

…she'd hate him forever.

"You can take the mask off when that happens, okay?"

"The blood's soaking into you're outfit, Mister ANBU, and you've lost a lot. You _will_ die if you don't just tie up that pride of yours and let me help you!" She made one last futile attempt to take it from him, but even in his condition, the blonde was too fast for her. People were starting to stare, now, he knew. Well, let them. It wouldn't be the first time.

"Please," Naruto whispered, feeling more lightheaded than he should. He hoped he wouldn't pass out. Then she'd just do what she wished, and when it came off… she would…

Naruto was _dead_, he reminded himself, not for the first time that day.

"Look," she said gently, trying to reason with the unstable man, "I'm not after your identity anymore. Keep the mask on if you want, but please, at least let me fix that cut."

Naruto hesitated for a moment, not fully trusting the woman, but in the end, relented. Sakura just had that way with him, ever since they were kids.

_I'm trusting you, Sakura-chan._

He slipped the mask's band from around his head, carefully pressing the bottom of the guise to his face so it wouldn't fall off completely, then slowly lowered it until the brim of the feline mask's head was resting against his nose. He allowed the shadows of the hood to swallow the curves of his face, the defining features still hidden under the handheld mask.

Sakura gasped slightly, for although she had seen the man's eyes once before, they were so…_familiar_ to her, and it hurt to see them on someone other than…Naruto. She shook her head slightly. It shouldn't matter _who_ it was before her now. It was an injured comrade, and it was her _duty_ to the man to heal him. It was, after all, the least she could do.

"See? That wasn't so hard, now was it?" she crooned as she cleaned the gashes on his brow. For once he could truly appreciate the time he had taken to make the bandana from his hitae-ate forehead protector. With luck, the thing hadn't come loose, and for all she knew, he could have brown curly hair. Nothing golden to remind her of a friend long gone. Or a friend right under her nose.

"Says you," the man muttered, and if she hadn't know better, she would have said the figure was sulking, pouting every time the cloth ran over fevered skin.

"Oh, you crybaby," she whispered affectionately, gently running a damp cloth over his eyelids to remove the dried blood. Blue chakra spilled from her fingers as she traced the deep gashed in his scalp, barely healing them with her weakened power, but still stopping the flow of blood.

A long shadow fell over the two, and both tensed at the unexpected presence that neither had felt arrive.

"So, it's true then. What she said." The voice, accusing and cold, came from a man standing not three feet away, glaring down with intense hostility. Naruto choked, and his exposed blue eyes shot wide open as he found himself staring back at a furious Uchiha. The teen had not changed since he had last looked into those expressionless eyes, although something was missing. The spark that had slowly grown as the two boys had. The hidden smile that was lingering just under that mask of nothingness. It was gone. Naruto felt a rise of anger stirring in his belly. What had taken that from his friend? The boy before him was no better off than he had been when the two had only met.

The man made a grab for the blonde as if to rip the rest of the mask from his fingers, or possibly just to kill him, but a small hand slapped the arm away.

"_Sasuke._"

"Dammit Sakura, don't get in my way!" he snapped angrily at the girl who's eyes blazed in a defiance rival to that of his fury. For a moment, it looked as if he would strike her back, but he withdrew his hand and turned to stalk away. Twelve paces apart now, he looked over his shoulder, and a shiver ran down Naruto's spine at the pure force of the glare. This person, this man that he had once known and befriended…_hated _him. Again. And it broke what was left of his heart.

"But, I will _never_ forgive you," the man spat out angrily, "for having _his_ eyes." He strode away, leaving the two old teammates together in a heavy silence. And almost inaudibly-

"Yes," Sakura murmured sadly, resuming the cleansing of other small cuts and bruises. "There's only one person with the rights to those eyes."

Something tugged at his heart. Guilt, he realized, with a touch of aching discomfort. But, want it even as he did, it was impossible to tell her. She'd be better off thinking that he was dead. It was true though, _right?_

And, after all, how would she react if she knew he was right there, right before her? That beneath these black and white layers of cloth, and behind the fox faced ANBU mask, he was just Naruto Uzumaki? Four years older, but, her childhood teammate nonetheless? The tears and screaming would not end the pain that would hit her with the knowledge, because only time healed wounds so deep, that much he knew. And she had waited four years for the last one to cure.

Naruto had taken the conversation for finished, and to be honest, he would have preferred it that way. Talking about himself as he had, like some sort of corpse (which he supposedly _was_, anyway) felt like a continuous lie, one that would damn him forever.

If he hadn't been, already.

But Sakura had other plans, and even now, looking into his former teammate's reddening eyes, he felt the oncoming of the shame brought with this interaction. He sighed, mentally of course. The fox within him stretched lazily, massive talons digging pits in the steel floor, leering contentedly.

"You came back," the girl stated simply, though the blonde knew this was not the main objective in communication. Sometimes, he had to agree with Shikimaru. Women were a whole 'nother breed. Why couldn't they just come out and say what they had to say? It was annoying. But, no, that really wasn't true. He was just on edge lately. Just set back in a position he had no desire to be in. He grinned sarcastically.

"Yeah, so?" He was trying now. Really _trying_ to change his voice now that the quick girl had ideas, even discarded ones, implanted in her head. It wouldn't do for her to suddenly connect two and two and figure it out. She really wasn't that far from the truth, anyway.

"So, I didn't think I'd see you after…you left." There it was, she was going to spill soon, he could feel it. Gods, what had he done to land himself here?

"I decided that mass murder wasn't something I wanted to watch today," he joked, and then immediately regretted it when her eyes rimmed with hot liquid.

"But tell me," she whispered brokenly, "tell me how you knew my friend."

Well, it wasn't like he hadn't tried to avoid this. After all those years as a child, wondering how others would feel if he had just died, imagining them crying over his death and sorry they had done those things to him…well now, it just wasn't that great a pleasure as he had used to believe. Fancy that.

"Friend, huh?" Something about the word struck an unexpected note in the boy's heart, and it took will power to put himself in check… to not break down right then and there and hug the girl whose suddenly frail body shook as dry sobs wracked her figure. "Well, it's been a while, really," he lied.

"You were…close?" Sakura sniffed, running an arm over her wet face.

"Yeah… you could say that…" Then, to end any stray thoughts the girl might be thinking, he added carefully, "He taught me some techniques a while back. Mass replication and…" Naruto paused, as if trying to conjure some long forgotten bit of memory. "And a trademark jutsu of his… though I won't go too far into detail." Sakura smiled, probably remembering the share of nosebleeds and blood loss that jutsu had caused.

Seeing his friend's mood had lightened slightly, the blonde relieved the tension in his arms, folding them comfortably across his chest and leaning his head back against the wall, eyes closed, allowing his mask to hang from the tip of his nose. Apparently, he had missed the sudden darkness that surrounded the girl, until she said quietly,

"He's dead now, you know."

The teen's eyes opened, slightly in surprise, but mostly out of the need to play his part.

"Hm, no. I wasn't aware." And in an attempted to comfort the kunoichi, "I'm sure that, knowing him, he went out peacefully, in a way that suited him most. He was happy, I'm sure."

The girl choked, shaking her head violently from side to side. But, oh, that was right. Naruto could recall faintly the state he had left the body in. Sliced up almost past recognition, leaving no doubt as to the end of Naruto Uzumaki. Maybe he had gotten carried away that day...

"No…he, um… he was- right after…" the girl was breaking down, and Naruto finally took pity on her. A silent hand to her shaking shoulder, the right amount of concern in his eyes…

"It's okay," he said gently to the distraught woman. "I understand."

She nodded sharply twice, trying to compose herself as best she could. This would take some more time, he knew, to repair the wounds he had inadvertently cut open.

"Talk about something else?" he suggested, more for his sake, he figured, than for hers. The girl straightened, and in just a moment it was impossible to tell she had been crying. Really, she was something else, that girl.  
She cleared her throat.

"Your clothing."

A raised eyebrow.

"My what?"

"Your clothing," she repeated smoothly.

"And what about it?"

"They're dirty."

Naruto snorted. She was probably getting a kick out of this, too.

"Oh, well, you don't say." But just to humor her, and probably because it would have driven him mad if he didn't, the teen glanced down, confirming only exactly what he was feeling beneath the sticky layers. The blood had seeped through both cloak and vest, and with annoyance, Naruto acknowledge the sting of sweat dropping into the smaller cuts along his torso and arms. With a shrug, he replaced the mask, firmly concealing his facial features once more. If Sakura was disappointed, she hid the emotions well, tugging at his sleeve, which he tugged right back and out of her grasp.

"The clothing comes off _now._"

"Oh?" Another eyebrow raise, and with smug satisfaction, a light blush. And then a sigh.

"Let me wash it for you. The mask goes too." She raised a hand before the sitting teen could protest. "I'll get you another one, but _it goes._"

"Really?" he asked interestedly. "A fox mask?"

She flapped a hand in the air in a dismissive manner.

"Anyway," she pointed a long delicate finger at one of the medical tents, and he wondered _why_ she didn't bring him in one in the first place. He could still feel eyes lingering on him. The newcomer. The oddball of the group. "You change in there, and I'll bring you some new clothing."

Although he really _did_ intend on arguing at least, the prospect of _new clothes_ quite appealed to him, more so than jogging his pride. And to feel truly _clean_ again, that was something he had once even stated he would trade almost anything for. Almost. And now, here was his chance.

"The clothing better fit," he muttered darkly, waving a hand at the girl as she tried to help him to his feet. He wobbled for a second, then started off towards the white tent she had indicated to moments before. As an afterthought, midway through the opening, he stopped and called in her direction. "I'll skin you alive if you peek, and dance the tango on your grave!"

The tent flap dropped, and the boy disappeared. Sakura rolled her eyes and waited at the opening.

It was only moments before a black cloak, heavy with liquid barreled out of the tent, nearly catching the girl full in the face. It was soon followed by a torn and soaked vest, and dark black pants. She waited. Tapped a foot. Drummed fingers on her leg.

And waited.

"The mask too, dammit!"

There was a sullen pause, then the ceramic covering hurled through the air, hitting the girl square against the shoulder.

"Dammit, Naru-" she choked, then recovered just as quickly with another not-so-cheerful, "Screw you!"

"You'd love it, Sakura," the voice inside the tent mumbled.

"What was that?"

"I said, don't throw my stuff out. I still want it."

"You baby," Sakura muttered, turning with the handful of soggy torn clothing.

"Wait, but I really did want to-"

"I'm just going to have them washed," she explained, walking off, and promptly dumping the pile in the nearest waste bin, dusting her hands happily. "I'll be right back!" _There's my revenge, asshole._

.o.

The tent, in its entirety, was not at all uncomfortable. In fact, Naruto happily noted, it came with a small but perfectly usable bin of water. It was chilly from the cool surface air, but a small spark of blue chakra had it nearly boiling in an instant.

The teen didn't seem at all at odds with his current, well, lack of attire, as he dipped a cloth into the scorching liquid, running the rough rag across bare skin to remove the blood and grime. Nobody would, or even _could_, walk in on him. The colorless chakra barrier that surrounded him was one of the strongest jutsus he had mastered, once upon a time. There was no one in the near vicinity, at least, who could destroy it. Not even-

"Dammit, get your ass outta there, or take this damn thing down!"

Sakura, frustrated to no end, stood fuming outside the tent. Apparently she had sought to return Naruto's favor, and opted to throw the bundle of clothing right in- and with luck, hit the unsuspecting teen. Unfortunately, the barrier, merely doing its thankless job, had, with a flare of ocean blue chakra, chucked it out right back into the livid girl's face.

Sputtering indignantly, Sakura pointed a finger at the tent. If looks could kill ex number one hyper active ninjas, Naruto would be six feet under by now.

"Take it down!" she yelled murderously. Oh, he'd better or else she was gunna-

"Alright, alright! It's down!" The amused blonde shouted from within. Countless eyes watched as the kunoichi hurled the pack in…

and hid laughs behind their hands as it bounced right back, smacking soundly against her forehead protector.

Naruto chuckled. "Guess it takes a bit of time to go completely down, though. Sorry 'bout that, Sakura-chan." This time, when the clothing launched through the flap opening, the teen caught it easily in an expecting hand, grinning widely. This was just too much fun.

Where the teen knew it was beyond his luck to ever wear an ANBU outfit again, he was not at all surprised to see that the material passing roughly between his fingers was the standard jounin uniform. His size, too. How thoughtful of Sakura.

A heavy weight seemed to settle in the pit of his stomach, a frown on his face, as he donned the pieces one by one, and the pile at his feet slowly diminished. At first it was impossible to tell where his discomfort stemmed from, until only one article lay innocently at his feet.

He could smell who that mask belonged to, even before he saw it. (Probably because it hadn't been washed and still reeked of man sweat.)

It wasn't ceramic, not hard and brightly painted. In fact, it wasn't even an ANBU mask to start with. But…

Kakashi had many masks that concealed his most defining features well, so why shouldn't it disguise what the world had not already seen of Naruto?

Naruto donned it with a shrug that might have lifted the world from its feet for all the effort it seemed to take him, feeling not at all unlike a dress up doll of his mentor- from the baggy jounin uniform, to the eye-revealing mask, though he left both of his exposed. Now all he needed was a book of smut, and three not-so-defenseless underlings. Then, he mused, things would become interesting.

But alas, he was Naruto, and Naruto wanted nothing to do with the man from whom he had stolen the mask. What was far more noteworthy was the previous owner of the clothing he now bore. A little loose, but then, he was a little skinny.

When had Sasuke Uchiha become a jounin?

The smell- it was faint, and partially concealed behind the offensive odor of washing soaps, but Sasuke had always been clean. Always been the orderly one of the team.

…And of course, the only one with an outfit that would fit the lanky teen. There had been a time when the height difference had been almost unbearable, Sasuke towering nearly a head above the other…but things had changed. He might be, Naruto snorted, even a little taller now than the other.

_Thanks, Sakura._

The blonde dipped his head a last time in the fouled water bin, scrubbing his raw scalp as best he could, nails scratching flesh.

But it felt so good to feel alive.

A clean forehead protector. Unfold it. Place over head, and tie. Not to loose. Turn it, just a little! And turn it back into place. He was getting used to it, this new routine. A _safe_ routine. One that would protect his identity.

He wasn't Naruto. But he was. Recognizable only by the brilliant ocean blue eyes that held more pain than they should.

Loud cursing tore the boy from his downward spiraling thoughts, and only a momentary hesitation glued him to the spot, until he warily stepped out of the tent, shielding his eyes from the sudden light that flooded his vision.

"Kakash-_you!_" An indignant and furious voice ripped through the air, the ragged breaths of three, no, four leaf nin the only other sound in the frigid night. The lights held aloft by the onlookers shifted, and Naruto could see clearly, for once, the face of his old friend.

Sasuke was only a few paces from the tent, restrained by the limbs by four other jounin. And good thing too, he looked ready to murder, and Naruto wasn't in the mood to be caught in his unawares. The black haired boy was livid. His eyes, no longer the quiet brooding shadows they had been earlier that night, were now vivid red, just as they had been the night Naruto had left the village.

_Sharingan_.

He nearly whispered the word his mind had instantly supplied, but he grinned instead, fully aware that this time, his facial expressions were visible through the thin mask.

"Hey there, _Sasuke-kun_. You look upset. Anything wrong tonight?"

Another chuunin latched onto the teen's arms as his snarl shredded the air around him. "You _bastard!_"

Naruto had wanted to say that that was _his_ line, and dammit, don't ever use it again, but that would have blown his cover. How unfortunate, too.

He sauntered slowly over, catlike grace he had never had before, yawning and stretching his arms over his shoulders. This was good. It was _very_ good.

"But _Sasuke,_" _(can't you see who I am?) "_I only wanted to thank you for the lovely clothes you offered me!" Somewhere in the growing crowd, Sakura choked. Apparently she had never told the boy just where his clothing had disappeared to. "It was ever so…" Naruto leaned in closer, a foot now from the fuming teen. "_pleasant_ of you."

The blonde was thinking just about now how lucky he was the other was being restrained by just about half the jounin team, and most of the chuunins. Between curses and threats Naruto figured Sasuke'd make good on, suddenly he wasn't feeling all the secure. But, being the number one knuckle headed ninja that he was, Naruto continued.

"So, _Sasuke…"_

"Dammit, don't you _ever_ fucking call me that!" Not in that way. Not in the way Naruto had once uttered his name. This mere _boy_ was _not_ going to ruin his image of his old rival.

"Does it bother you to smell you on me?" He smirked cheekily, and plucked at the clean clothing, blue eyes shining mischievously. It was hurting the other, he could see, his ocean blue eyes.

Memories.

Even Naruto could now understand the pain of seeing something that reminded him so much of his old life.

"No. It _bothers me_ to see you _alive,_ you prick," he ground out in possibly the most words he had spoken all day.

The comment stung, it really did, but Naruto had years of experience the other probably knew nothing about on hiding behind a mask of humor.

"That wasn't very nice now, was it?"

"Give me your damn name," Sasuke spat out, his struggles against the bodies holding him back never ceasing. Unconsciously, the crowd seemed to move closer, all ears turned to catch the word that stood as a barrier between themselves and this stranger.

"Unfortunately," Naruto shrugged, "I can't divulge such information. But," he voice grew low, and his smile dropped. "I do have a message for you."

"**Kit. Don't. Don't even think about it."**

"Shut up. I don't need your help," Naruto snapped at the demon, now growling agitatedly through the bars.

"Fucker, you're the one yakking." Red eyes glared daggers of fire at him.

Shit. He hadn't meant to say anything out loud. But, he leaned over the raven haired teen's shoulder, his lips, through the black mask, grazing the other's ear. He could feel the body next to him tense at the contact. Suddenly, he was unsure if what he was doing was right. But, he was never one to quit once he started.

"He never blamed you, Sasuke."

The boy jerked, hissed, and everything was silent. The calm before a storm set in. But when it came, it was unlike any storm the blonde had ever witnessed.

"_Three. Fucking. Years._" Sasuke would not look into those eyes. Not this time. It reminded him too much of something he did not want to remember. But something desperately did not want to lose. "He looked for me for three _years_…even after I punched a hole in his chest; told him I hated him; _Betrayed_ him for power." There was an underlying of guilt in that stony voice. He was trying so hard to get this blame out, possibly in hopes he could forgive himself, and at the same time, was trying to hide it all. "He left, and I wasn't even the one who found him," Sasuke mumbled, not even caring if the other was comprehending what he had said. "Four days."

Was he blind? (_hey, Sasuke, it's me. Naruto. Right here; not dead.)_

"He missed you," Naruto whispered.

"**Dammit, Kit. You're blowing it!"**

"How the _fuck_ would you know?" Sasuke exploded, and the blonde had to jerk back to save his eardrums. "You called yourself his _friend,_ but I'll tell you what, you don't have the slightest _clue _about-"

"And _you_ do?"

Oh, he had hurt the boy. He could smell it, even if he couldn't see it. He hadn't meant to. Maybe he should learn to keep his temper in check. It was only okay for Naruto to loose it like this. And he…

Was. Not. Naruto. Naruto was dead.

"Get the _hell_ away from me," came the low growl, something of a rumble in the boy's chest. A frightful sound of doom for those standing around him. Even though it wasn't visible, they could all feel the swelling of power amalgamated with pure fury. This time, and not so much out of fear for his life as it was fear for his identity, Naruto nodded, brushing past the struggling group holding down the man. Past the groups of onlookers, and past the trees that bordered the camping area, until he realized that he was running. He slowed down, trying to calm his ragged breaths, and still his shaking limbs.

He hadn't known it would be like this, seeing Sasuke again. A friend he would live to kill, and die to protect. How twisted.

A hand caught hold of his arm –he didn't notice it?- and he swung around, ready to press the person into the nearest tree and kill him. Only, he couldn't move.

"Sorry about that," Shikamaru muttered tiredly behind him, releasing his binding jutsu. "Just wanted to make sure your reflexes didn't kick in and have me dead before you knew what was going on."

Naruto snorted. Okay, so he wouldn't tell the man that's what would have happened. Better to let him think he was wrong. It might humble him a little.

Shikamaru was staring blandly at the green moss on the trunk of the tree beside him, seemingly waiting for some sort of recognition, but not at all bothered by the silence. What a guy. Naruto lost his patience.

"What do you want?"

The shadow possessor shoved his hands in his pockets, -it was cold outside- but looked up into the masked man's face nonetheless. "Just wondering if you'd join us tomorrow." He cleared his throat, and continued, although they both knew what needed to be said. "We could use another able body like yours. Sakura said you can use Kage Bunshin?"

Naruto nodded. "Barely."

"Good enough."

Naruto snorted. "Couldn't you just lie to me, and tell me it's all going to be alright?" He asked dryly. Not that he really cared, anyway, but it would have been nice to hear.

"Sure, I could, but would it honestly make matters any simpler?" Brown eyes held blue for a moment. The blonde grunted, wanting to roll his eyes in exasperation.

"No, but it'd sure as hell feel good."

The other man shrugged noncommittally. "It'll be alright, then."

"You really suck at convincing people. You know that, right?"

"And you wonder why I didn't want to tell you in the first place?"

"No, not really."

The stars had already caught the man's attention, and he flopped over on his back, not at all concerned for his safety, and it was there that Naruto left him. There would have been a time when he might have thought about laying down with his friend, sharing the silence, and absorbing the peace for just a little while longer, but he had places he needed to go, things he needed to stop running from.

Tomorrow, whatever it brought, would be gruesome.  
And he was going to fight it with everything he had.

…

**Hey everyone! Thanks again for the reviews! The critique was _amazing_, and the content just sooo helpful! Thank you all! Again, I hope this answered a few questions, and there will be more answers coming up in the next chappies!**

…

-**_Feed the hungry authoress, donate a review-_**


	3. Repaying Our Debts With Interest

'**.o.'  
-+.:In Leaps and Bounds:.+-  
**'**.o.' **

**º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø,¸¸ º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø  
**_I dipped my hand into the stream  
And pulled you out a memory.  
I stood there by the water's edge  
And saw myself ever changing.__  
_**º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø,¸¸ º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø**

**-Chapter Three-**

He sat alone, atop one of the few great trees that bordered the camping site, letting the wind tousle his hair as his eyes roved aimlessly across the grounds. He was, in his own rights, one of the night sentries, unable to sleep, too many troubling thoughts crowding his mind to permit it.

Unconsciously, he adjusted the bandana, covering the few visible strands with a sigh. Maybe, he should dye his hair. But, even so, it would do nothing to change who he was. What he is. And…what _is_ he? Too many troubling thoughts can really play a cruel game with one's mind. Especially if they are not as strong as they let on.

He could still hear the voices in his mind, replaying the scene that he had watched from this very limb only hours before. He could see the gathering that had stood outside his tent just an hour before, still clustered together, and still murmuring the same lousy words they had mouthed before. But, most of all, he could see and hear _him._

"_I would have killed him, ripped out his throat with my own hands on the spot, if given the chance," _that raven haired teen had hissed quietly, glaring furiously around at his old classmates, possibly asking in his own overbearing way for support, eyes finally resting on that man who dared look so much like _him_.

"_It's a good thing then," _Neji had said, finally speaking up_, "That the Hokage put me in charge of this mission, and not you."_

Naruto had even watched as Sasuke stormed off into the only comfort of seclusion his small Spartan style tent had to offer, while Neji dispersed the gossiping group.

No, Sasuke had never been good with people, and even still, things had never gotten any better.

And now, with thoughts of that very _teme _running haywire through his head, Naruto was ready to do something drastic.  
As if he hadn't already. What the hell had he gotten himself into?

"You can come out now," he said casually into the wind, knowing that the man watching him from the other tree nearby would hear.

And he was right.

A figure, Kiba, he realized insouciantly, crouched on the same thick branch Naruto was balancing on, mindless of the height or the dark. Akamaru was perched on the scruffy teen's left shoulder, just under the man's ear, observing the world about him and sniffing the air delicately. He'd grown…but so had they all.

After all, it'd been four years since he'd last seen these friends.

"How'd you guess?" Kiba asked warily, not sure if the calm man before him was trustworthy. Sakura, she had said he saved her…more than once, but he had learned to always verify such claims. They, the rookie nine, had been through too much together to _not_ be wary. What was to say he hadn't mind-wiped or impersonated the young woman for his own causes?

They were at war, and there were no second chances here. No baseless trust.

"I could smell you," Naruto said, tapping his nose, still looking off into the distance. "And I could hear you." A finger brushed his exposed ear lightly, and then tapped on the side of his head. "And I could sense you in ways you'd never understand." He wasn't mocking, nor was he threatening, but the way he said it, so aged and distant, it made the dog lover and his companion shiver.

"Look," Kiba tried again, eyes determined, and heart racing, "I'm not good at floundering around topics, so I'm gunna cut to the chase."

"Please." Naruto spread his arms in invitation, and when he turned to face the two, boy and dog, it was as if he were looking both in the eye at the same time. It was unnerving. Kiba swallowed, not exactly sure how to begin now that he was here.

"You realize that we all, especially Sakura, feel the need to keep you close, right?"

Naruto could smell the sweat rising from the boy. This wasn't an easy topic for him to approach, apparently. But then, determination must have won over.

"Why do you think that is?" he prodded when the boy did not answer. Shadows leapt deftly across his face as the midnight watch shone their bright lamps briefly over the two huddled figures. The wind picked up again, and Naruto stretched his neck lazily into it, feeling slightly more alive tonight than he had in years.

Kiba opened his mouth, ready to speak again, when Naruto nodded.

"I have an idea."

"Care to share it?"

"Why don't you tell me what the reason is first?"

The other boy dipped his head, a bitter smile twisting his face as he shrugged towards his night companion.

"You're too much like him. Like Naruto. Both physically, and…" he wrinkled his nose, as if suddenly deciding his next statement wasn't quite as true as he had originally thought. "Well, you share a few traits of his as well."

Naruto nodded, not smiling. "I thought as much."

"So," Kiba continued, pressing his gaze at the other, "it's not so hard to think that we would want to keep you close. I think Sakura took it hard when…" he sighed, opened and closed his mouth a couple times, and then sighed again. It shouldn't be this hard. Nothing should be this hard. "It was just that he was the first – and only so far- of us to go. The whole team, the whole rookie nine, took it hard. Maybe you wouldn't understand what we shared... it's just that... just try not to get yourself killed, is all I'm saying."

The cloth mask stretched to accomidate Naruto's slight frown. "You said you _all_ wanted me close?"

Kiba caught the subtle hint, turning his head away. "Sasuke…he's just a different matter. Stay away from him. Whatever our friend might have told you about him, he _will_ kill you. Naruto may have been his only friend for, well, possibly his whole life, and I doubt he's ever gunna open up to anybody else again. Especially not to you."

Naruto did not question, and Kiba did not continue. In time, the man left, just as silently as he had come, leaving Naruto alone with one more troubling thought to occupy his mind.

How was he going to leave, now that they depended on him? Now that he was becoming attached?

"You planned this, didn't you, you damned old fox?"

The monster did not answer, but the smug silence was all he needed to confirm his question.

.o.

He had become host to nasty blue rings beneath his eyes by the time the light struck the far reaches of the mountain tops an immeasurable distance away. They were there, sneaking about in the camp, and he picked them off, one by one, as they exposed themselves. Dirty mist shinobi, fighting under the cover of the night's shadows; the hourly watch either dead or completely unaware.

A bloodied Leaf Hitai-ate gleamed from the ground, and Naruto realized he had gotten his answer.

Kyuubi growled within him.  
_Blood. He needed blood._

The black seal encircling the blonde teen's stomache pulsed, but was pushed back until the demon's presence was no longer overwhelming, and the voice in his head was silenced. But it would only be a matter of time before it came again, stronger and louder than before.

It wasn't the first time Naruto had sensed the seal was breaking.

The monster sneered somewhere in the depths of the boy's murky mind. All in due time though. All in due time. For now, he would wait.

Naruto flitted invisibly from tree to tree, dropping the invaders where they stood, then moving on. There were more now, and he could see the outlines of countless others bridging the hill. Maybe he should wake some-  
Ah, but here they came anyway, just in time, ringing the alarm as they staggered ungracefully from their tents, rubbing the sleep from their eyes and blearily reaching for weapons.

A flash of green and the battle cry of "Oh, Gai sensei!" alerted the shinobi present that Rock Lee and his mentor had joined the fray as well.

Naruto couldn't help but smile. It wasn't all that different, even now. It was even a little nastolgic. He was relieved to see that throughout the four years of his absence, there had been no falling outs between his friends. Though the groups had long since dispersed, their genin years completed, they were all still here now. Fighting back to back, tossing smiles of acknowledgement around, and all the while holding the enemy at bay.

His eyes danced as he watched them, communicating without words, working as the largest team he had seen, as a mist rose up about them.

And this time, they were all prepared.

Shikamaru had ten men incapable of individual movement, while Kiba and Akamaru circled them, picking them off leisurely while the other boy groaned in annoyance.

"Hey, hey, Shikamaru! Make them dance, make them dance!" Akamaru barked in agreement, and ten unwilling heads shook as Shikamaru sighed. This was obviously going to be a long day.

"You bitch!"

Naruto's head snapped across the group where Sakura and Ino were bickering, swinging their arms about through the air in what appeared to be friendly anger, all the while catching unsuspecting opponents with their flying fists.

"You're the whore, Ino!" Sakura turned briefly around, punching the man behind her, and had turned back to the blonde girl before the man had even hit the ground.

"I swear! You know he wants me more than you!" A kunai soared from the blonde's fingers, striking yet another man behind her friend.

"Why would anyone want a pig like _you_, you slut? Just ask him, you'll see."

Naruto shook his head. Where they still, all these years later, fighting over Sasuke? Really, he had thought the two would figure out that it was an impossible dream, and find somebody a little more…obtainable.

"Sakura, you billboard brow! Why don't _you_ ask him? It's obvious he wants a skinnier, prettier-"

"Fine!" Sakura took a few steps forward, punching another nin out of her way, before Ino caught hold of her shoulder.

"Hey, _I_ wanted to ask him first!"

"It was my idea in the first place, so back _down!_"

"I'm not going to loose to _you_!"

They glared, then, shoulder to shoulder, barreled straight for their other companions.

"CHOUJI!" They roared in unison, and Naruto choked on his own humor. "Who do you think is prettiest?" For eyelashes batted flirtatiously.

Poor Chouji looked as if he were going to have a heart attack.

"I asked first, Chouji, so it's me, right?"

"Back _off, _you dumb whore, _I_ was first!"

Something a distance away was burning, the sharp scent amplified tenfold by Naruto's acute perceptions. He didn't need the ability to smell five times greater than the average bloodhound to see the smoke billowing from the other side of the hill.

Kyuubi rose in anticipation, and the blonde hunched over in pain. Fire had always been the fox demon's element, and it was calling to the spirit, empowering him, and he in turn was overpowering his host. _Trying._ The teen, however, was still in control; it would take more than just a fire to let kyuubi loose on the world, but he still found himself drawn to the source of the flames like a magnet.

For some reason, as he passed over this crest for the third time since he was a child, he wasn't surprised by the sight there. At least, not at first.

Sasuke Uchiha always fought alone, and it was never really something the other boy could change in him, not after all these years. Sure, the blonde had fought beside the teen, but rarely had one relied on the other as a fellow teammate or companion. Their prides would not allow such a thing.

More hand seals, more frown lines, and then, more flames. He really had improved on his jutsu. Maybe, someday, the two would be able to spar again and see who was really the-

Naruto shook his head. Dreams like that were impossible now, and utterly useless. He had learned a long time ago that dreams, especially the strongest of dreams, they were nothing more than ideas that died just as easily as mortals.

The flames that erupted from Sasuke's mouth formed around the figure he was trying so hard to incinerate, creating the illusion of a fiery demon from hell, walking his first few steps on earth. Oh, and wouldn't Naruto know all about that. He grinned wryly.

And then frowned.

The figure was still moving and…

…laughing?

"_Shit!"_

Silver armor, no ordinary armor, shone like cold fire beneath the dying flames that licked against the steel. Yes, Naruto hadn't forgotten this man, (_those fucking talons, shining in the morning sun_) or what that bastard had done and _thought_ about doing to Sakura. He hadn't even yet _forgiven_ that man for nearly exposing his identity to the girl. He wanted to shout something along the lines of "Hey, Fuckrag!", but Sasuke would immediately suspect he had been hollering at him. Really, that guy was so uptight, he got a wedgy just looking at him.

No, Sasuke's fight was Sasuke's fight, and he wasn't about to interfere.  
No matter how angry he might have ever been at the other, he would never try to take the boy's pride from him in such a manner as fighting his fights.

But it was a clear sign that Sasuke was loosing.

"What the hell are you trying to play at, you idiot?" Naruto muttered from the ridge. Leaves danced around him as a gust of wind rocked the trees about the boy. "You're not a fucking superhero, so don't go acting one."

The charred and broken bodies lay in the masses around the sparring nin; evidence that this wasn't the first man the teen had stumbled across. But Naruto worried that he was at his last.

A fire dragon (_how impressive! It must have taken years to master _that_ one)_ rose up, and smashed into the armored enemy, but only Sasuke had been effected. He stumbled back, as if the torrent of red hot flames had hit _him_ instead, and sweat drenched his body, running into his eyes and blinding him.

A cold metallic ringing pulsed through the air like a foul storm, and the blonde realized with a wave of surprise that it was…laughter. Frozen and merciless, and full of hatred. He thought that if Sasuke could laugh, that was how it would sound. Deep and full of the pain he wanted you to feel.

The armored nin advanced, and Naruto just couldn't hold back.

"Dammit, Sasuke! Either hit him or _run!" _He was at his nerves ends. Sasuke was lying like a fucking rag _doll_ in the middle of a field while his enemy charged him. This wasn't the Sasuke he knew!

Red sharingan orbs hit him, seemed to _penetrate _him, and for a moment, he froze, caught in a memory far too old to be this vivid. But then they slowly receded, the pinwheels enlarging and forming a moody black iris which looked down and away. What the _hell_ was he doing?

Sasuke was _trying_ to say something, he could see, but the words seemed to utterly fail him. Naruto rolled his eyes, slightly panicking as the mist nin drew his sword from the long and decorated sheath at his side. Dry blood stains marred the otherwise perfect blade as the smooth morning sun rays hit it, forcing the glaring reflecting into Naruto's eyes.

"_Chidori, _you dumb fuck! Use _chidori!_"

And then, Naruto realized just _why_ Sasuke wasn't fighting.

He didn't have the chakra or the strength left.

The raven haired man concentrated, pouring his energy into the palm of his glowing hand, and a small ball of pure energy slowly formed. And then dissipated, just as quickly as its caller collapsed. Naruto flinched as he watched his once-friend try to stand back up, ragged breaths tearing at his throat as he doubled over, landing on his hands and knees once more. When he looked back into the blonde's eyes, there was for a moment a flicker of…regret? Then a glimmer of fear, instantly washed away by acceptance of reality as a heavy sword raised chest high over a broad shoulder, now only a foot away.

He was going to die, and Naruto was too far away to help him.

Naruto swore.

"Kage Bun-" No, he couldn't _trust_ a clone with something this important! But…

Time was slipping through his fingers, fading in front of his eyes as a physical presence. The sword was raising, raising, and that _laughter!_ And then, he decided.

Actually, he had already known, really, what he was going to do. He had died a long time ago. Today, he would merely be repaying the extra time he had borrowed.

"Sasuke…"

.o.

"Naruto…"

It was, Sasuke had decided, alright. Four years had found the teen wandering wraithlike about the village; never really here nor there, but always _somewhere_ that had reminded him of the boisterous blonde. Ichiraku ramen, always so bitter against his tongue when he glanced to the side, and some dim and unsociable stranger occupied the seat beside him.

The Hokage monument. Hadn't Tsunade said…hadn't she told him once that she had already chosen her successor? He had nodded as she rolled her eyes, telling him quietly that she was just waiting for him to grow up, all the while glancing sideways at the rambunctious ninja.

And now, in his fading vision, he believed he saw the boy again, his only friend. The friend who he had betrayed, killed, and left, all those years before. The same boy who had found him, after three years; brought him home and forgave him. The same boy who had left, and died, and this time… _wasn't_ coming back.

Now, he fancied he could hear the older version of that same strong voice, calling to him to _keep fighting,_ but, sorry Naruto, this time he just couldn't do it. But, hey, I'll be with you soon, don't worry.

He waited, and even let the corners of his mouth lift in a bittersweet smile. He could feel the brush of air as something, (he really couldn't care less _what_ it was, so long as it was sharp) was raised in the air somewhere above his head, and as it pulled back, he wanted to say something, to express his regrets and sorrows before his life vanished. He wanted to tell Naruto he was _sorry_. He _had_ looked, night and day, for the teen, just never thought the other was capable of _dying_ before he found him. He had never paid back the debt he owed.

And then, with a slight twist in his gut, Sasuke felt fear. He hated himself for it, because he shouldn't be _feeling_ this, not after what he had done, but he looked up at the figure with Naruto's voice, silently requesting his help.

But what could anyone do? The shape was nothing more than a blur in his eyes, too far away to _do _anything. So, he waited. Accepted, and waited, sitting back sullenly on his heels, arms limp at his sides, waiting for the steel blade to run him through. Maybe it wouldn't even hurt. Maybe he'd die before the pain set in. He closed his eyes, but it didn't do any good. He could still see that armor ablaze, and hear that man's laughter…

Small leaves blew about his fevered face in a tiny whirlwind as the blade drove down, and he could _hear_ it entering his body. But he was so numb. No pain, no pleasure…no heaven.

…and no hell.

Sasuke let his lids flutter open. Maybe when he could see, there would be another world before him. Maybe… maybe Naruto would be there, waiting for him. The blonde had always seemed to be waiting for him, though he never really had known why.

And he _saw_ it- that figure!

"Naru-!" he paused, taking a second look at the jounin before him.

Anger.

"What the _fuck_ are you _doing_ here, you _bastard?_"

The leaves died down, drifting away in all possible directions, and Sasuke was left staring at _his_ back. Maybe he should stick a knife in it while he had the-

Oh, but there was already one in it.

The tip of the mist nin's sword protruded ever so slightly from the thin black fabric of the jounin uniform the man before him bore. Red blossomed around the steel and dripped from the gloved hand that was holding the other end of it firmly, preventing it from slipping farther through his skin.

"Why?" Twin sharingan orbs flared. Sasuke refused to be humiliated…especially by this man he so despised…

…who happened to be placed between him and death. "Dammit, Why?" he yelled, bellowing out his anger at the bleeding figure before him. "Why the _fuck_ would you-"

The bitter laughter tore harshly through the man's throat. "You wouldn't understand."

"…_Why?_" It was soft, angry, and full of the pain that only memories can bring.

"What?" The question was a laugh, hard with sarcasm and acidity. "Does the great Uchiha survivor not have anything more to say?"

The blood in his mouth, he decided, did _not_ taste anything short of repulsive, and the growl behind him told him Sasuke hadn't take the snide remark too kindly. Naruto smirked.

"Dammit, I wanted to _die!"_

The blonde flinched, harshly pulling the sword from his skin, and glaring for a moment over his shoulder at the man behind him in the grass. "It _disgusts_ me," he snarled, blocking his opponent's free arm from striking his unprotected head, "How _easily_ you give up."

He was being unreasonably cruel, but hadn't Sasuke learned that the fight was never over until either the opponent or you were dead? If you were going to die anyway, what more did you have to lose? And, he realized bitterly, he himself was making a fine example of it. He hadn't won against this armored _fuck_ before, and he was sure as hell too tired to do it this time.

But he was a fighter, and even though he _knew_ he couldn't win, giving up was just something wholly unacceptable and alien to the boy.

The mist nin leered, and would have shown rows of corroded teeth, thickly layered with last night's dinner, but his helmet thankfully hid the unpleasant sight from view.

"I _do_ remember you, boy," he sneered, raking his steel talons over the blonde's side, sickly electrified in the sound of flesh ripping. "I'm so _thrilled _you wanted to play with me again. I was starting to get… lonely."

"This is… it…" Naruto coughed, a thin trail of blood seeping past his grimace, staining his mask a deeper black. "I won't…_lose._"

There was a sharp intake of breath behind him, but Naruto could no longer hear. Something was wrong, and things just weren't going as planned. His vision blurried, then focused... and then he lost it entirely for a few terrifying seconds. He staggered slightly to the left, rebalanced and overcorrected, then staggered a little to the right. Had the blade been…?

"Not the blade, _boy_," the man murmured, pulling the teen closer with his clawed hands. A curved blade, a steel fingernail running two inches from base to tip, hovered in front of Naruto's face as his breathing became more labored. _Something_ was wrong here. So very wrong.

"You put poison…?"

"In the claw." The man nodded arrogantly. "Now you're catching on." Another four lacerations joined the others on the teen's bleeding body, and for once, a thrill of horror shot through him. What if he couldn't protect Sasuke?

...he had _promised_ to protect him...

"You're right," the man whispered in his ear as his body shook with the first stages of paralysis. "This _is_ it. You just won't win."

Naruto tried to reach up, stop the blade that was honing in on his chest, but his arms had long since become useless limbs at his sides. Long thin fingers twitched by his sides, but eventually, even that movement became impossible. He watched with wide eyes as yet another hole was torn through his body, the steel blade driving through his torso excruciatingly slow, but the pain that followed seconds later was dulled by his inability to breathe. He was choking on his own blood, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke," he mouthed, not at all sure he had actually said the words. "I tried." His head rolled limply to the side, muscles unable to support the weight, allowing it to loll from side to side as the man shook his body with glee.

Cold iron latched to heated skin, digging metal nails into soft shoulder flesh, and for a moment, time seemed to freeze. There was not a sound in the air louder than the sword being savagely ripped from the dazed figure before Sasuke. Not the barbaric laugh of the man, nor the ripping of a soft fabric mask between blood soaked armored fingers. Nothing, none of the sluggish images hitting the raven haired teen's mind seemed to process. Not until a limp body dropped down before him, pure blonde spikes sprawled over his feet.

"N-no…"

A tattered navy blue hitai-ate, stained black with blood, clanked to the ground next to the blonde boy's prone figure, and Sasuke felt the bile rising to his throat.

"Naru…to?"

The body twitched, but not in recognition.

A hand on a horribly ripped shoulder; a bloodied face exposed to the noon sky; a cross between a gasp and a sob as he realized- realized that it might just be too late.

And then anger.

Hate.

"I'm gunna _kill_ you!"

Sasuke ran him through once, twice, with what weapon he used, he didn't know, stabbing the man who had hurt- killed?- his best friend, over and over. Blood dripped from his face like sweat, sharingan eyes wild with fury, until he became conscious that there was no longer golden hair at his feet. The soft spikes, now stuck together and matted with crimson stains, were almost unrecognizable in the ripe red blood that soaked them.

"N…Naruto," he whispered, katana lying forgotten in the grass at his feet where he'd dropped it. "Just, just hang in there… alright?" Sky blue eyes flickered open, and then closed, open, and then closed… and then they didn't open at all. How had he been so…_blind?_

He received no answer.

"Naruto, don't…don't go…"

His friend was terribly light. Lighter than any shinobi should be, weightless in his arms as he sprinted the bloody battlefield, screaming for a medic. Sakura, where was Sakura?

The colors of the field flew past-

Red, orange, black, silver, and- pink!

"Sakura!" Sasuke skid to a halt, barely aware of his location, shaking the girl on the ground. "Sakura, wake _up!"_

Sasuke jumped as something made contact with his shoulder, swinging a kunai around, only to have it blocked by a man in stained green. A jounin from the Leaf. Sasuke took a moment to register what had happened, then looked down at the girl, unconscious on the ground. "She's not…?"

"She's resting," the man assured the stricken boy, looking down first at his wounded charge, and then back at the pink haired kunoichi. "Overexerted herself."

"Then, can't you…?" Sasuke hoisted Naruto higher in his arms, silently begging the man for help.

"Sorry, son, that's not my-"

A randomly flying kunai to the neck ended his sentence, and his life. And Sasuke was left alone, holding his dying friend to his chest, the boy's blood seeping through his own uniform. Such were the fate of ninja fighting a war on open battlefields.

"Dammit, I need a _medic!_" he shouted in the air, wishing someone would rush up to him, wishing the battles fought around him would just go the hell away, and wishing that Naruto would just open his fucking eyes.

But, just like always, there was nobody to answer his wishes.

He had stopped wishing years ago.  
...Four years ago.

The boy in his arms began convulsing, slowly shaking, then jerks wracking his body as red foam flew from his lips. Apparently, this was not a good sign, Sasuke's mind helpfully supplied. So Sasuke did the one thing he hadn't done since he was a child, standing over his parent's corpses while his brother looked on with amusement.

Sasuke Uchiha ran.

For the first five minutes of his blind sprint, the only destination he had planned was _anywhere the hell away from here._

He barely registered in his mind that the noises were dying down, and the scenery was changing.

Until he saw the village.  
He had been told that the nearest village was the Mist's own, but the details of the mission seemed so far away now, as if he had received the information years ago. It had been only two days ago. But two days ago, he had known for a fact that Naruto Uzumaki was dead and buried six feet under.

Inside the gate, (which he had jumped over in his headlong rush) the Village Hidden in the Mist was not so different from the Leaf. It was damp and somewhat dreary, and looked all but abandoned, but that had been expected.

"S-Sasu-ke?"

Sasuke looked down in hope at the boy in his arms, gently wiping away the blood from the corners of the limp man's mouth with his thumb.

"Naruto?"

"Sas…uke…"

"Naruto," he pressed urgently. Was there something he had overlooked? Did Naruto know the cure, or was he in pain from the position he was being held in? Sasuke readjusted his hold, just in case. "Naruto, you have to tell me what's going on. Do you know what's going on?"

"Sasuke, I'm not…not going to-" What? Die? Live much longer? Sasuke looked down in concern, trying to get a focus on the half open dulled orbs of his friend.

"What Naruto? You have to tell me. What won't you do?"

"I won't…" Sasuke peered intently down, straining to hear these last words…

"I'm not gunna…" Naruto coughed, spraying bits of blood across both their faces.

"I'm not gunna... eat at Ichiraku today," he mumbled into Sasuke's vest. "I think I have a fever."

So, what now? He was _delirious?_

Ignoring the senseless rambling of the blonde held tightly in his arms, Sasuke bolted towards the nearest house…

…And threw open the wooden door.

"Can you save him?" he gasped, completely out of breath as he stood dripping in the doorway, his friend's limp body pulsing blood through his clothes, water accumulated from the heavy mist running the length of his body to pool gloomily on the floor. "Can you help my friend?"

Somebody screamed; a teenage girl, no older than Sakura with plain brown hair, and another woman, possibly her mother. The woman stepped up, a human shield barring the way to the girl who had already dropped to her knees in fear.

"What do you want here?" she snapped, fear and defiance glistening from her eyes and posture as she took in the sign the blue hitai-ate bore. "We have nothing to give you!"

"Please," Sasuke choked out, the impact of the day's events hitting him and weighing him down. "I just need a medic for my friend."

Two pairs of eyes wandered down to the jerking boy, blonde hair spilling between mud and blood caked fingers which gripped his head to a soft chest in a death hold, and the older woman glared.

"We have no room for the likes of you. Get out, before I…" She never did finish. Sasuke doubted there was much she _could_ do if he had wanted to force her. But desperation was something that drove him to reach into his pocket, dragging out a pouch of coins, dropping it on the nearest table.

The money given to him by the Hokage for the mission.

The gold and silver spilled from the mouth of the container, rolling to the floor of the dirty house.

"I'll give you more later. This is all I have. Take it, but just help Naruto. He's…it was poison, I think, from a blade, or something. Can you help him?"

Brown eyes wandered from the teen to the money, and then back up to the blonde still firmly pulled to the other boy's chest. Slowly, the older woman pointed a shaking finger at a moldy straw bed in the corner of the destitute house.

"There. Lay him there, and don't you interfere!"

Sasuke nodded.

"Hana, the water, and a towel. Then get my kit." Her body was relaxed now, her voice controlled and commanding as the girl scurried about the small house, gathering the ordered items. The woman turned to the delirious boy, suddenly aging years before Sasuke's eyes as she seemed to slump into herself, acting every bit her old age. Naruto rolled on his side, and Sasuke bit his lip, watching tears march freely down his friend's whiskered face.

"Please…" The blonde sniffed, choking on the fluids coating his throat. "Please, don't leave me."

The voice, how could have not have recognized it before? It was something he never should have forgotten in the first place…but he was going to make up for it right now. _Because there might not ever be another chance._

"I'm right here, it's okay, Naruto," he whispered, locking fingers lightly with the other's. _The last time they had committed themselves to this action, he had forced his fist through Naruto's chest seconds later. He had nearly _killed_ his best and only friend._ But the boy couldn't hear him.

"Please, 'lease dun leave me 'lone," he whimpered louder, thrashing his head from side to side, tears streaming from unopened eyes. His voice rose higher with…fright? Panic? As he began tossing and on the makeshift cot. "Dun leave me 'lone, Sas…ke, 'm _always_ alone." And then, barely more than a whisper, so quiet it could have merely been a breath seeping through his lips, he muttered, "I don't want to die."

It was impossible in water country to tell if it was night or day. The dampening fog lay thickly over the village, not caring that the hungry were freezing on the streets, or of the women crying and babies starving. It gave no notice to the first house on the outskirts of the village, deteriorating and crumbling in on itself, while its blonde occupant slowly bled his dreams away.

"Naruto, I won't forgive you… if you die."

_.o._

_He can still see it clearly. He's standing on the head of a rock statue, and there's more than just a wide expanse of water that separates him now from Sasuke. He shivers, not entirely from the chill, and his throat's dry, even though the clear water rushes like a thousand hungry wolves below him._

_And all he can see is red._

_Red eyes, red blood, red fans that make up everything that is Sasuke Uchiha. But even though his friend is no longer the boy he trained with, Naruto is going to bring him back. His promise to Sakura is far forgotten, but his promise to himself which he sealed with his own blood ages ago atop the Hokage monument…it's fresh in his mind._

_There's a clash now, bright lights and pain. Pain from his body, and pain in his heart. Hell, there's even pain in his mind where logic is telling him that Sasuke will never come back. He's exhausted, and Sasuke is smiling. It's not the beautiful smile Naruto knows._

_It's full of hatred and lust. But not for him. Only the hatred is for him, but that look in his sharingan eyes… it's a lust for power far greater than his desire to live and protect._

_He is not ready to kill Sasuke, even though his nails and whisker scars have grown sharper and more prominent, and he bears the essence of the nine tailed fox. He's not ready to drive Rasengan into his rival/sometimes friend's heart. He'd rather die._

_And he supposes, that's what he did._

_There's a flash of brilliant and dazzling white and blue lights, and the lake is roaring around them, ready to consume them the moment they drop, but somehow, it's just Naruto and Sasuke, not friend nor foe, but something a lot deeper than anything they could ever describe. And then the moment is gone, and the pain is still there._

_The waves leave him blinded for a second, but he doesn't care. He's never really cared, even as the shards bite away at his flesh. They heal, and reopen. Heal, and reopen._

_It's a sad existence. Even for him._

"_Sasuke…"_

_He can feel the pulse of blood- his blood- as it seeps through his very being. And, he can also feel the pulse of the other's arm, which is now lodged through his chest. He can feel himself dying as the limb is extracted none too gently, and he realizes, he's not ready to go._

_He still has dreams and ambitions. Love and desires._

_He still has Sasuke._

_But Sasuke is gone, and won't come back, so he lies, and waits, thinking that this is maybe the best way to ever go._

_He almost cries out in anguish when someone picks him up and starts back the way he came. He wants to tell them to just _leave_ him there to die, because, fuck, that's where _Sasuke_ left him, but he doesn't have the energy to fight it. So, he lets the tears roll down his face, willing his body to open up and pour out the rest of his life. It's not worth living anymore._

_He's failed._

_But, he makes another promise._

_He will bring back Sasuke, or die trying._

.o.

"Is he awake yet? He's…crying…"

Cold hands on heated skin, wiping away the lukewarm tears.

"No, no. It'd be too soon."

A…woman?

"He _will_ wake up…right?"

Fingers twisting matted blonde hair, strain in the voice, in the heart.

"We'll know in the morning." A soft sigh, and some rustling. "How about you?" A small voice, timid voice. "Will _you_ be okay?"

No hesitation. Steeled and hard.

"I'll know in the morning."

.o.

_Now, he's no longer a child, and no longer searching for his friend. He's found what he wants, but unfortunately is not conscious when Sasuke carries him home, bleeding and sobbing into a pale neck, but all the while smiling because he _knows_ that Sasuke won't be leaving again. Even if it almost cost him his life again to ensure it._

_Even though the blood is dripping to the floor so fast it leaves a solid trail, and even though he's nearly run out of tears and words and hurt, even though Sasuke is entering the village for the first time in three years carrying his best friend on his back,_

_Naruto has won._

_He's mumbling and crying pointless and inaudible nothings into the other boy's shirt, and is comforted by soft whispers, promises of forever and apologies of a lifetime. They're friends, and the best at that. And they are also enemies. They lived to kill each other, and would die to protect the other. And that was just the way things between them worked._

.o.

"Take a rest, child, I'll wake you up if anything changes."

"No."

"You've been here for three days now, maybe you should-"

"Then one more night won't kill me."

A sigh.

"How's he doing?"

"I'm not sure, but wherever he is in that head of his, it's sure as shit better than here."

It wasn't a mockery of the place they were in now, because even in his sleep, Naruto was still smiling.

.o.

_Naruto is fourteen now, and it's only days after Sasuke has brought him back, but things are different. There are no more promises of forever and friendships, because now, Sasuke knows what he is. He knows his worst and most inner secret. Sasuke has seen him kill…but not just kill. He's ripped the arms and legs off living bodies, their screams still not dying in his ears even after years of pain. He's almost killed Kakashi, and even worse, he's sure he's almost killed Sasuke._

_So he runs away._

_Fakes his death._

_Attends the funeral for himself that only a handful of others came too._

_But it wasn't his fault! Something- it doesn't really matter anymore _what_ it was- something brought out the fox, and he had lost control. It wasn't his fault._

"_It's not my fault."_

_He didn't do it._

"_Not my fault…!"_

_He hadn't wanted to hurt those people, and he still hadn't ever forgiven himself…_

"_It's Not My Fault!_

_But those bodies, and the blood, it was everywhere… on the walls, on the floor, the broken glass that had shattered, and even on him… under his nails, in his nose, on his hands…feet… chest…!_

"_I DIDN'T DO IT!"_

"I know."

.o.

Naruto stopped his struggle, stopped screaming, and just about stopped breathing. Sasuke watched, carefully tucking away his emotions behind an impassive mask as the blonde opened those pure blue eyes in confusion.

For an instant, he saw everything Naruto could possibly be feeling fleet open and free across the boy's scarred face. It was the first time he had seen no desire to _hide_ those raw emotions behind a smile as false as illusion. He saw hurt and pain, understanding then regret. But what struck the silent teen most was the inflexible _fear_ in the boy's eyes that never seemed to leave despite the other reactions flitting in those depths. Naruto was _scared_, though about or for what, Sasuke hadn't the faintest idea.

"Sas…ke?" The boy tried sitting up, but fell back before he had gotten an inch off the bed. Sasuke frowned.

"Don't move, dobe. You had me fucking worried there, you know."

Naruto smiled, and the raven haired teen nearly flinched at the fakeness he could now read behind it. Had Naruto been faking it all these years? Maybe-

"Heh, 'm really actu'lly fine, yanno?" He lifted a hand, possibly to scratch the back of his neck, but wasn't able to move it beyond his chest. He let out another laugh, expelling the sweet air from his lungs in an incomplete imitation of a sigh. Blurry and glazed eyes slid shut behind their lids as the teen settled into a more relaxing position. He was ready to sleep again. "But man, c'n I tell yah, I dun think I've ever felt so… so… _uncomfortable _before." A small hum escaped his throat, though even if Sasuke had known the tune, the music was chopped and slaughtered before it left the boy's lips. "Well, 'cept maybe that time after…" A small frown disrupted the boy's otherwise peaceful features. "After…"

"I'm sorry, Naruto," Sasuke muttered, knowing just exactly what his friend was recalling. _After the time he had nearly died with chidori through his chest._ "But I came back to you, you know that. And I promised not to leave."

The small head of gold nodded, the frown deepening, as if the boy was trying to remember why something was not quite right…

"Yeah, I know that, Sas…Sas…"

Blue eyes shot open, wild with fear and horror, and not at all lacking in realization. "_SHIT!"_

The bandages were staining red as Naruto ripped his arm from under the covers, hand coming to a stop against his face, running fingers along his jaw line and cheekbones, dipping over soft eyelids. "_Shit shit SHIT!" _His mask, where had it gone? Had Sasuke…?

"Naruto, Calm _down_!" The growled command split through the other's wild thoughts, but only aggravated his frenzy. He was twisting, writhing in an indescribable agony, fingernails digging into his thin facial skin as if the boy were trying to tear his features off.

"No, no, no, NO!" Another hand joined the other, and the angry red gashes refused to heal over again. He was gasping for breath now, eyes staring wide up at the other man. "It's not- you don't see-"

"Naruto, _CALM THE FUCK **DOWN!**_**"**

A hand whipped out through the air, catching a flailing wrist, and marveling at how thin they had gotten.

"YOU LET **_GO_** OF ME!"

Inhuman strength and speed had Sasuke flung backwards while the wrist was snatched back and dragged over rapidly changing eyes. The flash of crimson faded quickly to purple hues, then from purple to a deep ocean blue.

But Sasuke had won, even if Naruto hadn't bothered to take notice. The teen was no longer fighting, and the glimpse of blue was covered in the crook of the ragged teen's arm.

"Naruto," Sasuke began uneasily, not sure exactly how to go about doing this. "I need to… to talk to you about the night you-"

"Just… forget it, okay?" Naruto muttered tiredly into his arm.

"What the hell's wrong with you? I just need to tell you-"

"I _said,_ dammit, _forget _it, okay?"

"I won't! Dammit, Naruto, I _won't_ forget it!"

The impact of those words hit him full in the chest, stopping his breath and possibly his heart for a full three seconds.

It was _exactly_ as he had feared. They wouldn't forget, and couldn't forgive. Not now, not ever. And he hadn't really expected them to, either.

"Well, fine then, don't!" Naruto finally snapped back, uncovering his eyes now and glaring haughtily back into black orbs. "Don't forget, and don't forgive, it's all the same, cause I'm leaving now, anyway." The teen swung his legs over the side of the bed, trying not to wince in pain, and too proud to sit back down. "I'll get out of your fucking hair, asshole," he mumbled, eyes downcast as he shuffled from the room.

"Dammit, Naruto, don't you remember _anything_?"

"No, so you might as fucking well remind me, Sasuke," he snarled, turning on the boy. "Who was I _trying_ to kill this time, before I lost control and slaughtered the whole fucking room?"

Sasuke looked taken aback by his friend's outburst.

"You…honestly don't remember?"

"No, so fucking enlighten me, or let me go. I don't have all day."

Sasuke furrowed his brow. His pride rose up at the challenge of admitting anything of that night to Naruto, but the need to keep the boy safe with him for the first time in four years was greater. He had a price to pay off, and now was the time to pay it.

"You…were trying to protect me, Naruto. You- and when Orochimaru tried to- you really don't remember?"

For a moment, Naruto's eyes went wide, silence gripping the two by the throat.

And then he laughed.

It was a bitter and humorless sound that sent shivers up the pale teen's spine, and daggers through his chest. _This _wasn't _the Naruto he knew. Was this how the blonde had felt when he himself had left the village?_

"You'll have to do better than that, bastard." Naruto spat, opening the thin wooden door and stepping through. He paused, turning to look his old teammate in the eyes. "And I'm sure _sensei_ was happy to have his precious prized student safe from that overgrown snake…

and that damned demon fox kid, too."

The door slammed soundly shut as Naruto walked off on his past for the second time.

But this time, Sasuke wasn't going to let him.

…  
**Okay, I feel kinda bad. At first, this was about 20-30 pages long. (No, really!) But then, I'm like, screw this, I'm _not_ editing all of _that_ tonight, (I have WORK tomorrow at SIX for crying out loud!) So, I decided to upload just this, instead of waiting another week. Yay!  
**…  
-**_Feed the hungry authoress, donate a review-_**

**(I Freaking LOVED ****onegai-onegai****'s response:  
"-Feed a hungry reader, donate an update.-"  
So this chapter goes out to you!)**


	4. I think I'd like to go home

'**.o.'  
****-+.:In Leaps and Bounds:.+-  
**'**.o.'**

**A/N- Sorry I haven't gotten back to some of your reviews in time! If I missed anyone, please feel free to email me and trash talk me until I give you your response. :-p Also, I'm getting a lot less feedback than before. If you don't like something, please let me know so I can fix it! Congradulate me: I just spent $60 on Pocky.**

**º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø,¸¸ º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø  
**When I ran I didn't feel like a runaway,  
When I escaped I didn't feel like I got away.  
There's more to living than only surviving,  
Maybe I'm not there…  
But I'm still trying.  
**º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø,¸¸ º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤ºº¤ø**

**-Chapter Four-**

He was unstable, wavering between collapsing and _changing_. Maybe, maybe if he just lay down now, if only for a second, that awful clawing in his belly would just _go the hell away._

That's what he always used to convince himself of in the past, before the pain became unbearable.

"Dammit, Kyuubi, _stop!_" A mental barrier slammed down on the demon, dimming the intense presense and entrapping the beast for only a spare few seconds more.

"**You stop. You stop fighting Kit, and everything will be easier,"** the voice inside him soothed, though it was far from convincing. The ground beneath his feet seemed to move on its own accord, a dim and unnoticed blur in the scenerey rapidly fading in his vision.

They had played this dangerous game many times before. But never, _never_ had they played it in such a condition. Never when he was on the verge of giving in.

"**I promise it won't hurt if you do, Kit. It won't hurt. It won't hurt. Just let me have some fun."**

"You lie," Naruto accused, panting in his effort to run and communicate at the same time. The demon laughed, claws digging anxious foot-deep holes in the cage as his massive body shook with mirth. Maybe this was a waste of time, a fight that in the end he had to lose. Maybe the outcome was already decided, and Neji had always been right all along.  
Maybe.  
But maybe he could still keep fighting.  
"It _will_ hurt. You- I won't ever let you touch them!"

The demon grinned, offering no support or chakra to the failing boy who stumbled, fell, then was right back up, running again from something as insubstantial as his past.

"**Only for a little bit, boy. Only for a little bit. We can be so powerful together. What are these people to you, compared to the power we can have?"**

"They're…my friends."

_Sasuke…_

"**I _will_ get what I want, you brat, if I have to take it by force."**

Naruto paled as the corner of the sealing tag within him began smoking, and the demon started laughing.

.o.

It was painfully simple to follow the trail of blood and prints the blonde had left on the ground, though it was by no means an easy path to follow. It seemed to zig zag from left to right, seemingly through the bushes and over large rocks, until Sasuke couldn't figure out just what the hell Naruto was doing. The reduced state of physical ability his friend had been left in had stripped the boy of his most essential senses.

He was running only on instinct, Sasuke realized.

"Naruto, where the hell are you?" he muttered under his breath, knowing that anything louder would be completely pointless. His friend would never openly reveal himself.

The blood on the ground was growing thicker- or was the sky turning darker?- and the teen sped up, memories forcefully surging to the surface of his mind of times long past.

Times he wanted to forget.

Of a time when he had felt the wind blowing through his hair this exact same way, leaping deftly from limb to limb, and then running flat out on the hard ground, arms out behind him, searching for the runaway nin.

Of a time when the guilt was heavy in his heart; when it was weighed down by worry and fear, and a single thought running through his head. _Faster._

It was of a time when Sakura had joined him, tears steaming from her eyes as she told him that Naruto- that a body they _thought_ was Naruto- had just been found, and could he please come back to the village to help identify it?

No, he wasn't going to lose that stupid dobe this time. Not again.

Although the thoughts were less than reassuring, he felt his pace quicken all the more. He _would_ find Naruto, if only because he hadn't the last time.

The trail of blood had stopped at a nearby stream, the type of water source the Mist village was populated with to the point of irrational abundance, and Sasuke growled in irritation. He could no longer pick up the scent that had become his second guide.

"Naruto," he growled, and almost fell in the stream in shock when an answering growl resounded from a nearby bush.

Pushing the leaves aside, too curious even to curse the thorns digging painfully into his palm, Sasuke stared.

Naruto was lying in the mud, curled around his knees, eyes half open and exposing a magnificent purple hue, the scars on his face expanding, then contracting, expanding, and contracting. Golden spikes lay spread over the damp earth, leaves and mud clots entangled in the fine strands.

"Naruto," he whispered, suddenly frightened for his friend. This- this was out of his control. What was happening to the boy? He had always known Naruto was special, was harboring hidden powers... that much had been clear when they fought at the Valley of the End, but that had been something he thought Naruto could control.

Hands wrapped about his abdomen, torn and unhealed skin pushing out an unnerving amount of blood, and the tips of fangs protruding from a slightly parted mouth, Naruto looked anything but in control.

"Naru-"

"Get away!" Red lines moved like living entities in the teen's eyes, swimming in the changing purple hues. "Dammit Sas'ke, go 'way."

_Before I loose control…_

"I'm not leaving, Naruto," he said quietly, trying to be there for his friend like Naruto had been there for him. Trying to be there for the boy, like he had never been before. "Tell me what the hell's happening to you."

_Everything._

"Nothing, dammit, _go_!"

He was twisting on the ground, writhing in pain as he clutched desperately at his belly, fingers raking the swirling black seal that was somehow expelling blood, though there were no visible wounds around it.

"Naruto…" Sasuke reached forward, and for a second, his fingers brushed over skin too hot to be human.

An animalistic snarl was his only warning before an arm shot forward, ripping a long gash across the limb he had just pulled back.

"_Shit,_ Naruto!" Sasuke yelled, trying to stem the flow of blood from his forearm "What the _fuck_ was that for?"

The blonde's tongue flicked out, tasting the blood flecked across his lips from Sasuke's flowing wound, eyes wide and wild as he tried to restrain himself, but all the while sampling the liquid like some exotic drink.

His breath was uncontrollable, ragged and unpredictable, leaking from his lips at its own leisure.

_It tastes sooooo good._

Was that his thought, or the demon's? They were all mixing together…

"The body…"

_More… More blood. Between his teeth, down his throat…_

"Sas…ke…"

_Yes, Sasuke's blood. Sweet blood. Tainted blood._

"What, Naruto? What body?" His vision was slightly hazy with blood loss- how deep had Naruto's nails cut him? He'd put the brat back in his place when they got out of this mess- but it seemed so…_unimportant_ right now. "What body?" he demanded again.

He wanted to shake the rasping boy, dig the answers from him, but wasn't sure if it was safe to get closer. Naruto was unstable, bouncing from rage to pain to whatever other available emotion offered itself first.

"Please, S…ke. Y'av ta kill't righ _now,_" he slurred drunkenly.

The body? Kill the body? Who's body?

"Your body?"

A slight nod was his only answer.

"Dun let it escape, Sas'ke…"

"The demon, right, Naruto? You have a demon, don't you?" Another nod, and a slight wince for the trouble it took him. "You have to tell me, Naruto, what do I do?"

"Kill-"

"_I won't kill y- it!"_

"_Now!"_ That voice. So desperate, so pained… was this the feeling of a demon trapped inside a body, fighting to get loose?

A shock of blue erupted within the purple of the boy's eyes, the flaming red strands recoiling. They seemed to form together, like a bead of red water sliding into a puddle, getting stronger, and stronger and finally-

It burst.

He screamed.

Sasuke had never heard such an eerie sound before. The closest memory he ever had to that- it wasn't even a voice- was the day when, as a child, he had accidentally broken the legs of a deer in a practice trap he had set up. The poor beast had screamed, and screamed, and _he_ had screamed, because he was a child, and there was no one there to stop the horrible noise from haunting him the rest of his life.

He had hit it. Hit the deer on the head once, then twice, then over and over with the thick branch nearby until the creature had stopped its sickening racket and died.

But this sound was different.

The wail emitting from his closest friend's throat was too _human_, but then, anything but.

It had the force of pained memories, the physical torture the enflamed seal was inflicting upon him, but also the note of a futile struggle.

It was a fight Sasuke knew all too well.

He was fighting to stay in control, to be independent of the thing controlling him, to be conscious enough to spare those around him from the monster within him. Hadn't Orochimaru taught him that much?

And then a thought. A simple, pathetic thought.

"Naruto," he whispered urgently to the twisting boy, "do you trust me?"

For a moment, he thought the boy couldn't hear him. But then, a small crack of eye peered up at him, the crimson in it nearly consuming the violet, and the boy nodded.

"With my life," he whispered, or, maybe not. He couldn't tell left from right in the state he was in, and really, he couldn't care less.

_Blood. He needed blood._

Hesitantly, Sasuke reached forward, hands resting over a frail tanned neck, and almost instantaneously, hands were crushing around his own wrists, inhumanly long nails biting into his skin.

"Naruto, fight it," he breathed, the tang of dried spittle in his mouth making him slightly nauseous. The hands relaxed slightly, the bulge of muscle across the blonde's arms the only evidence of the struggle taking place between demon and human. Sasuke applied as much pressure to his friend's neck as he dared, slowly cutting off the air supply to the brain.

The boy fought it.

_Not the boy. Not Naruto. The fox. The fox was fighting._

Sasuke straddled the writhing figure, holding the bucking body with his legs as his fingers squeezed the sweat soaked neck.

Just a little while longer. With no air, the body could not possibly sustain either figure as a host. The best he could do was hope that Naruto would be the first to gain control when the body did wake.

A slight infusion of deep blue chakra built around his hands, carefully molding them to his changing friend's neck, and building a delicate shield about his arms and hands. No matter what happened to his body, he would _not_ let go until the boy was unconscious.

He just hoped his plan would work.

And suddenly, the body stopped fighting. Finally slack and motionless under his weight, Sasuke breifly wondered if he were too heavy- if he was possibly crushing the teen beneath him.

"_Sasuke-kun,"_ the body under him purred, and he was met with crimson eyes, devoid of the innocent blue or the flickering purple. _Shit!_ Had Naruto lost the fight so easily? He had thought at least a little longer… "_Sasuke-kun,_ please let me go…"

With the fox's amazing healing abilities in its full powers, it could take twice as long before the body wore out without oxygen…

Sasuke pressed down harder.

He wasn't going to stop until Naruto was safe.

"I won't let you take him over!" he gasped, sweat pouring from his face as he struggled to see past the haze building behind his eyes. Maybe he should have wrapped the wound sooner…

"Oh?" The fox, it looked so like Naruto… he was _choking_ Naruto… "But _Sasuke-ku-"_

"Don't Call Me That!"

"But you let _Naruto_ say it like that…" the beast pouted, and Sasuke found it slightly unnerving. A small smile twisted at the smirking lips. "Would you let me if I looked a little more like _him?_"

_You… you _already_ look like him._

Slowly, then faster and faster, the prominent fox marks receded, nails and canines shortening, scar marks thinning, leaving nothing save a pair of deep red eyes with black slits.

"How about _now_, Sasuke-kun? Do I look like him _now?_"

_Yes._

"You just shut the fuck up and die already, bastard."

"If I die, he dies." The fox was getting annoyed, his grip on consciousness slowly fading as the body began to fail. Of course he wasn't going to kill him. Just knock him out and hope that Naruto would be smart enough to wake up first. The teen atop him pressed slightly harder, the air now almost completely cutting off, but still the demon spoke.

And then, it all fell apart.

"_Sasuke-kun_, if you let me go, I might talk the brat into maybe doing… _this-­"_ Two tanned hands shot up the raven haired teen's shirt, cold fingers exploring the untouched skin beneath.

Sasuke gasped, nearly relinquishing his hold on the body's neck, reminded only by the barrier of chakra he had molded around his hands that such moves were unacceptable. After all, it didn't matter what happened to his body, so long as the damned creature just fell unconscious already.

"Or maybe," the smooth voice below him whispered, chakra infused with the words to make them stronger and audible, "Maybe you'd rather him do _this…_"

The hands slipped lower.

"Dammit, stop!"

Two eyes blinked, and the hands paused. "Why, Sasuke-kun?" That voice, it was _Naruto's_ voice. Maybe this really _was_ Naruto. Maybe it wouldn't be so wrong if he just-

"No! You- No! You don't…don't go there…dammit," he gasped.

But they did.

He hissed- the fingers were cold from the night in Mist country- but then maybe… maybe it was because that _feeling…_

Lower… and lower…

"N…no, don't…"

And then-

"N-Naru… Ah…_Naruto..._"

The demon smirked. Even if it was losing, it had won.

"So, you do see _something_ in the brat. See? I told you. Let me go, Sasuke-kun, and I'll show you what else I-"

"NO!" He was red, from humiliation, from stress, from… a feeling he couldn't name.

It was nothing more than a physical reaction. He wanted to fuck _girls_, dammit. He wasn't some fag. Not for his best friend. Not for Naruto.

"Oh, that's a pity." Kyuubi pouted slightly, lower lip jutting out pathetically. "Kit's putting up quite the scene back there. I really thought he liked you too."

Sasuke paled. Naruto… could _see?_ He was…_aware_ of what was going on? What would he-

"He's disgusted by you, Sasuke-kun. Look at you, all hot and bothered for his body…" the hips below him bucked and wriggled, grinding the two lower bodies together, and Sasuke gasped at the contact. "So disgusting…"

"You- you _BASTARD!"_

He severed the chakra flow to his hands, pulled back an arm, and hit the sneering face before him as hard as he could.

Bones cracked and blood flowed, but the demon- and Naruto- were unconscious. Locked in their own semi-surreal realm.

For now.

…and he was disgusted too. With himself. For not only wanting to hurt the fox for his games, but to hurt Naruto for his rejection.

…For hitting the friend he had sworn never to hurt because he, Sasuke Uchiha, had just defiled the most important bond he had ever made.

There was no way Naruto would ever come close to him again, because it just wasn't something Naruto could ever understand. To him, physical attraction meant deep emotions… maybe because the two had come hand in hand with his crush on Sakura. Maybe because Naruto was just to ignorant to see or believe it any other way.

It didn't matter. Regardless of what had happened, Naruto now was his first priority. Seal the demon in for good, stabilize the host, and then…and then work out how to talk to the boy again.

.o.

Sasuke wondered how this scene could be so familiar, and yet, feel so wrong. The weight of the unconscious boy in his arms or on his back was something he was becoming accustomed to; something that always seemed to mark some significant occasion. _(Try not to remember just all those occassions Naruto _needed_ to be carried back home)_

Because his Uchiha pride would not permit, he had rarely known the feeling of being carried by another, (_He wouldn't remember those days when Itachi had brought him home when he had overexerted himself…and how good it felt to be protected by another…)_ though Naruto had no such setbacks.

He remembered those times he had helped his friend walk home, staggering slightly under the pressure of the body leaning against his… long after the sun had fallen and the moon was nothing more than a dark outline in the sky.

He remembered the weight on his back as he had carried the bleeding boy home; his first entrance into the village for the first time since he had escaped to join Orochimaru.

And he remembered holding the still-bleeding corpse in his arms, cursing and screaming as they tore it away from him because he would not- could not- let go.

But never had he felt so foul carrying the blonde.

Even knowing the boy was out for the count, that he wouldn't wake up any time that day, the lingering thought, the _what if_ possibility of it happening…

What if he did? What if he woke up, accusing and confronting the black haired teen? What if he asked if there were honest feelings involved?

…And what if he couldn't say no?

_Of course he would say no, and he would do it with a calm face and no regrets, because really, there was nothing between them but a friendship more valuable than life._

There had never been anything more than a physical reaction. Body on body- a contact that he had never before experienced in such a way.

But Naruto wouldn't know that. From any point of view- hell, even from his own- the odds seemed against him for making a reasonable claim. A reasoning that there really were no feelings in the whole complicated makeup of it all. Just physical reaction. That's all it ever was. Just physical reaction.

Honestly, he was satisfied that his first of the more intimate moves had been shared with his friend. He and Naruto had shared everything together, and it was something that no girl or lover would come between. Luckily, even the blonde could perceive that kind of bond, and it was something that went unspoken between the two, growing stronger as they grew older.

Sasuke nearly fell over when the body on his back coughed, and a sharp, "Naruto?" caused the blonde to shift, but there was no answer.

He walked on, alert now to any sudden moves, but only managed a few more paces before the form shook with another bout of hacking. Small specks of liquid hit his face with every wheeze, and, grinding his teeth and pulling the boy's legs tighter around his midsection for stability, Sasuke began sprinting back to the medic's hut.

She had medicine. She would know what to do.

It was getting worse. He was wondering between strides and leaps if Naruto was even _breathing_ with all the noise he was making, but only a little ways further, he could see the smoke rising from the hut's chimney.

…And just about everything else connected.

He stopped, already a good field distance between him and the medic's house, now slowly burning to the ground.

The screaming of animals still trapped in the barn beside the torched hut slowly died down, but the screams of people in the village would not cease.

The Village Hidden in the Mist was burning.

"You!"

Sasuke spun about at the voice, twitching slightly as a kunai flew past his cheek. A thin ine of blood trickled from the cut, and he turned his sharp eyes to meet those of his attacker. He did _not_ have time for this.

"Identify yourself!"

Sasuke moved the load off his back and into his arms, cradling the head of bright yellow hair to his chest, concealing the teen's face from the nin standing before him just as well as he could. If anything at all, Naruto would appreciate that.

Naruto, that boy was always in the way, always a burden no matter where they were, even when he was out for the count.

"Uchiha Sasuke," the boy answered coldly, recognizing the figures before him as chuunin from his village. "And if you don't stand down right fucking _now_ and give me the location of the nearest medic nin, I'll move you myself." He raised a hand around the body in his arms, not at all bluffing, and began forming hand seals with his fingers.

One of the chuunin hastely pointed downhill. "Uh, there…"

And he was off again, running towards the bobbing head of pink that could only be Sakura.

.o.

The bodies, they were everywhere.

Sakura had ordered them separated; the mortally wounded from the sever cases, and then those with less significant damage. If they weren't dying, they were helping divide the Mist nin from Leaf, piling the enemy fighters in an indecent pile to be burned, however they came, dead or alive.

Clumps of mud and sand rose crude and outlandishly from the ground, but it was okay, Sakura knew. The sand, the sand _nin_, were the reason they weren't all dead, though the kunoichi had to wonder if they had really made it on time.

The three sand siblings stood off to the side, seeming not at all aware that they had won this fight, though neither pleased with the aftereffects of the battle. Gaara's emotionless eyes traveled among the ranks of the living, scanning face after face, eyes only flicking to the dead occasionally. Sakura wondered who he was looking for.

She found herself uneasy, wondering where her friends were at that moment, and, were they alright? The rookie nine, she had seen them all, and aside from a couple unpleasant wounds she had readily tended, it seemed like they were all still together.

But she hadn't seen Sasuke. She had seen his fire elements during the fight, lighting the sky a brilliant orange red, but when she finally lurched over the hill, there was nothing. No sign of the boy except scorched land and an armored figure she quickly identified. Ripped to pieces and shredded down to the bone…just like… like… (_don'tthinkthatname…)_ She had become nauseous looking at the bloody spectacle before her. Had Sasuke finally lost his humanity?

A hand touched her shoulder, and she jumped, spinning around on the balls of her feet, and then jumped in shock _again_ when she realized who it was standing silently behind her.

"Oh, uh, hi, Gaara…" she stammered uncomfortably. She had never really held a decent conversation with the man in all the years they had known each other and her friends had partnered up with him for drinks. Even then, she could not find anything suitable to _say_ to the sand siblings… especially not Gaara. And it seemed, as things would have it, that he didn't have much to say to her by way of conversation either.

"Look," he said, pointing quietly to the crest of the hill where a figure was attracting quite the attention, barreling down it as though it were winning a marathon.

Sakura had no trouble identifying him.

"Sasuke!" She waved him down, though she already knew he had already begun running towards her, even before she was aware of him. "Sasuke, over here!"

It wasn't hard to recognize the body in his arms either. She frowned slightly as she waited for the two to catch up to her, taking a small step towards them and squinting her eyes at her friend's arms.

"…And Mister… ANBU?"

Her hand dropped limp to her side as the two joined her, out of breath and sweating through the thick padding of clothing.

"Sakura." Sasuke's voice was low, and the emotion in it seemed more than she had ever felt from the boy in a lifetime. His breath was ragged from the run, and the sweet scent of sweat mixed with the tang of blood already in the air. "Sakura, I need you to help him."

She was unnerved by the desperation in his voice, and more than a little ill at ease when she took into consideration just _who_ he was talking about. Hadn't this been the figure he had, only a few hours ago, sworn to kill?

"Sure, Sasuke. Sure I can help him. I'll do my best, okay?" She smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture.

The boy nodded, not letting go of the body which was still rocking in time to the coughs as he knelt on the ground, trying to hold the shaking shoulders still.

"Just as I thought."

Arms crossed over his chest, calm and toneless voice quiet but audible, Gaara blinked once down at the twitching figure, and then evenly met stare-for-stare with Sasuke. Sakura looked between the two, trying to understand the silent conversation between both jounin, who seemed to be reading the other's mind without difficulty.

Finally, Gaara nodded at the black haired teen and walked away, giving them their space.

"Sasuke…? What was that all…?"

"Later, Sakura."

And she also nodded, concentrating now on her patient.

Sasuke had thankfully pulled together what he could of the torn mask Naruto had once worn to cover his most defining features, tying the extra material in a makeshift knot behind the teen's head. Small holes and slashes disturbed the black fabric, but to Sasuke, the face beneath would have been unrecognizable.

Over the vibrant yellow hair now stained red with blood, he had placed the only extra hitai-ate he possessed in a fashion similar to the teen's original style. The one that only _he_ had ever been allowed to touch in all these four years.

The hitai-ate that had become a symbol- a promise- between the two boys.

Sakura noticed it too, the instant the man's head lolled to the side, and the bright metal plate caught the glare of a nearby fire.

She shook slightly under the even gaze Sasuke leveled at her.

A single flake of black ash floated serenely down from the sky, turned over onto itself as the wind guided it softly down, and it landed gently on the long slash running through the middle of the plate.

It was her turn to hurt and scream. "Dammit, Sasuke, how could you? That was… it was _Naruto's!"_ And now it was bloodied, defiled. Ruined. The last thing they had to remind them of their friend.

For some reason, with everything that had happened in the last couple of hours, from the fighting to the healing to the stress and the strain, Sakura was at her last nerve.

But there were memories in that forhead protector she was not willing to let go of. Memories of their oboxious blonde friend who had returned to the village without Sasuke all those years before, half dead, and clinging to the band like a lifeline long after he had been drugged to sleep.

There were memories of that same boy, smiling triumphantly by Sasuke's side some years later, waving his arm through the air as the light refracted off the very band wrapped about his wrist- his and Sasuke's silent agreement that he should keep it, because memories were always more precious to Naruto than anyone else.  
_(Because Sasuke aways seemed to see the blood of Naruto's he had shed on it, even though they had washed the cloth together.)_

She had thought that the name would upset Sasuke… that he'd growl and clench his fists like those times before when she had, only accidentally, let his friend's name slip in front of him.

But now, today, it was different.

"It was necessary, Sakura." Was his only explanation. And even though she understood, she couldn't _understand_… it was… it had been _Naruto's._ Why would Sasuke give something this precious, the one thing he had shared with his young rival in their childhood, just to cover the face of some other man?

She couldn't understand him anymore.

Naruto coughed again, but even as the fit died, his thin back arched off the ground, blood leaking from the corners from his mouth as he began shaking, his muscles seizing up.

"Sakura, _now!"_

She looked from her long time friend to the boy moaning in the dirt, head and shoulders lying flat against Sasuke's knees.

She and him- they'd have to have a _long_ talk after this was done.

Maybe even all three of them could get things settled once and for all.

Sakura placed her hands over Naruto's chest, and then, as an afterthought, drew her finger down his torso, evenly splitting through the jounin outfit with a thin blade of blue chakra. Replacing her hands, she closed her eyes, and concentrated.

Sasuke watched her face intently, forcing his muscles to relax every few seconds before they immediately clenched up again. He frowned when the girl before him twitched, biting her lower lip until it bled, and then began shaking. He wondered idly if she was also going through the symptoms Naruto was still displaying, but then, she opened her eyes…

…and screamed.

Heads shot to the side to watch as the medic nin threw herself bodily away from her choking patient, a finely painted nail still pointing at the convulsing body.

"That…that _thing…_" Sakura was gasping for breath, tears filling her eyes and leaking from the corners as her nails bit into the palms of her hands. "What that _fuck_ is that _thing?_" she screamed.

Sasuke sighed. He knew what she had seen in Naruto's body as she had tried to fix it. He remembered his own reaction years ago at the Valley of the End; the day he had first seen the Nine Tailed Demon Fox.

"I'm taking him to the Hokage then-"

"DON'T!"

"Sakura, get a hold of yourself," he snapped, tugging his arm from her death grip, and repositioning the boy in his arms once again.

"It's…he's a…" she lowered her voice and eyes until her face was completely hidden in shadow and no one but Sasuke could hear her. "He's a…monster."

"Can't you just…fuck, I don't know, work _around _it?" he asked ignorantly, fuming at her reaction and for even _suggesting_ that Naruto was anything other than human.

She was shaking her head vigorously, tears still unconsciously flowing. "No, no Sasuke! It was… _pulling _at me… some weird red chakra…and…" She moaned, settling her head in her arms as she curled into herself, inching away from the body she had been trying to restore. "There were…_memories…_"

Sasuke eyed her, pulling the body closer into himself as if to protect it from the nameless fear that Sakura was displaying.

"What _kind_ of memories?"

The girl shook her head again, wiping the fluids from her nose and eyes with the back of her hand, and then drying her hand on her clothing. "Really, really horrible ones. Blood and _bodies…_ Even a memory I could just _feel_ hurt him more than anything. Sasuke, what could frighten something as horrible as _that?"_ She pointed at Naruto again, but didn't wait for an answer. "And, somehow, some of it was so _familiar._ I've seen some of those places before…" she looked at him for help, any comfort he might be able to offer her.

"Where?" he demanded, eyes slanting suspiciously. "where do you remember?"

She shook the tears form her eyes, staring dumbfounded at her old teammate.

"There were just a couple places around Konoha…I don't know, Sasuke! It was all dark! What do you think we should-"

"There were other places, you said. What else do you remember?"

Sakura was silent for a moment, staring confusedly back at her friend. What was his _problem?_ Shouldn't they be doing something about that _thing_ in Mister ANBU's body?

…But… this was Sasuke that was asking these questions, and, even now, she would have a hard time not telling him everything she knew. It was so rare to talk to the moody boy these days. And, even so, he might know something about that thing…might be asking these questions because they were the answer to getting rid of it. Yes, that was it. He was going to help get rid of it. She straightened.

"A book… Kakashi Sensei gave me a text book when we were kids 'cause I wanted… wanted to study Konoha's history a little… and…"

"_And?_"

"And… I saw a picture…it was called the… "Valley of the End"…I think, but… it wasn't really a valley. It was…" She pondered for a second, trying to recall the place the man's memory provided, but also trying block out the spectacular show of lights that flashed before her eyes accompanying the scene. Blue and white lights… a bubble of chakra flashing over-

"It was a waterfall, I think. Or a river. And there were two statues…Sasuke, are you okay?"

He was trembling slightly, his normally pale features one shade lighter as his fingers dug painfully into Naruto's arm unconsciously.

How much had Sakura seen of their fight, all those years ago? They had never told anyone about it… And…

Was this the memory that still haunted the blonde teen? That still brought him pain and fear every time he thought about it? Maybe…maybe Sasuke _hadn't_ been as forgiven by the boy as he had originally thought… as Naruto had kept assuring him he was…

"I'm taking him to the Hokage," he said stiffly. "Thanks, Sakura."

"Sasuke, we need you _here._ Can't we just please…" her eyes flickered slightly towards the pile of the Mist's bodies, waiting to be set aflame, and Sasuke, disgusted, understood clearly the words she would not speak.

_Lets burn him, please. No one will ever have to know._

He turned around, walking brusquely towards a more open section of ground. People moved out of his way as he glared them aside, Sakura tagging a safe distance behind.

"Sasuke, he's not fit enough to travel anyway," Sakura pleaded in a last attempt to keep the boy safe at her side. "The village is over three days away from here, and that's going at the amazing pace most of us can't keep up with. Just let him _go,_ Sasuke. It'll do more damage to his body if it's jarred around like that. He needs an adrenergic-blocking drug which I _don't have_."

Sasuke kept walking. He wasn't going to- wasn't even _able_ to- dignify that with a response. Sakura- she just wouldn't understand. Maybe even if she knew it was Naruto he was carrying in his arms. Naruto, who was dying even as he bit his thumb and twisted his fingers in a jutsu he seldom used.

"Summoning Jutsu!"

There was a loud popping noise, accompanied by the summoning's poof of smoke, and those still on the field looked on in awe. As the smoke cleared, murmurs broke through the groups; frowns of disapproval crossing slightly fearful faces.

Sasuke glared at the staring nin as if daring them to challenge his choice of a summoning, all the while slinging his friend gently over the serpent's smoothly scaled back.

A long narrow head twisted about, and the raven haired teen looked into the slitted eye of the giant snake, which hissed, its long forked tongue tasting the air about the young shinobi.

"The traitor…" it hissed in what might have been amusement, and the observers took a few steps back, staring in awe. "The little traitor… asking for _my_ help?"

The power around the Uchiha seemed to swell tenfold, and the serpent seemed to smile.

"Alright," it whispered, wrapping a rough tongue around the boy's midsection and hoisting him up alongside Naruto. "But I expect a little more respect from you in the future, boy. No more emergency calls until I get something in return."

There was a short grunt of response from the teen, and they were off, sliding through the forest at a speed impossible on foot.

They would get Naruto home, no matter what. There had been too many deaths that day, and Naruto was _not_ going to be apart of that list.

- - - - - - - - - -

**Alright! So was it? Please review, I get so desperately -HUNGRY- for reviews. I need them like cocaine.**

-Drug a hungry authoress, feed her a review!-  
...Ich möchte die Hund essen! (Und darf ich bitte zur die Toilette gehen?) biiiiitttttteeeee?! .o


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